Writing In the Dark: A Few Technical Tips

SSA has been around for over a year now, and the Sleuths having been digging in the crates, pulling out some Golden Oldies for all of you loyal readers out there. Here's one of my favs from last year...

Our theme this time around is Writing in the Dark, so I thought I'd get a little technical on how to make your mystery, well, dark. While you need a good plot and great characters with believable motives and events to get your mystery rolling, there are also ways you can rev it up. Here are a few tips:

1) Be Aware of Tone: Tone is the overall emotional feel that your reader gets as they read your story. It can be serious, sad, dramatic, funny . . . any emotion really . . . and readers pick it up through the language the author uses. As you write, be aware of the tone you wish to convey and choose your words accordingly. A mystery can be told in any tone, humor even, but if you are trying to set a mysterious, eerie tone, choose words that when you hear them or see them, dark, uneasy feelings are conjured up. Words with the letter 's' for example, often make us think of creepy, slithery snakes, while words with the hard 'c' or 'k' can sound sharp and jagged. So take the time to look at the words you are using in key scenes as you revise - a simple verb change - like  'walked' to 'crept' - can darken your story quickly!

2) Use Sentence Structure to Build Suspense - Ever notice in a movie, right before the main character heads into danger, how the music speeds up, and, like clockwork, so does your heart rate? Well authors can do the same thing, despite no music, through sentence structure. When the scene is meant to be slow - your MC is collecting information for example - your sentences should be longer, more descriptive, in larger paragraphs. However, as a situation arises putting your character in danger or something else that would warrant the music in a movie, shorten your sentences. Why? Because when we read longer sentences, our eyes go nice and slow across the page, but short, quick sentences, and very short paragraphs, make our eyes go fast down the page. It makes our heart rate speed up and tells us something is about to happen - without actually TELLING us :)

3) End-of-chapter Hooks - My last bit of Writing In the Dark technical advice is about chapter endings. I know it seems natural to start and end a chapter like a complete thought, in a nice tidy bundle. But don't. Try ending your chapter at the height of suspense - like when the MC is about to get caught breaking into a room, or when the MC has just discovered a clue and is about to look at it. Stopping it in the middle of the heart-pounding action adds to the suspense and thrill of your novel. It also keeps the reader from putting your book down. Sure, they need to turn the light off and go to sleep, but let them do it while reading someone else's story!

That's my two cents Good luck Writing In the Dark!

_____________________________________________

Laura Ellen is the author of Blind Spot, an issue-oriented YA thriller about 16 year old Roswell Hart whose desperate attempts to prove she is 'normal' despite her visual imapirment, lands her in the middle of a murder investigation as a prime suspect -- and she isn't sure ifr she's innocent or not.

Damn(ed) Good Mystery Writing

Welcome to our Tuesday "Case Files from our Detectives." This month our theme is HARD FACTS. Mystery writing resources we turn to, from books to websites to people. Or how we wrestle with the practical matters of plotting and planning our mysteries. Whether you're a mystery writer yourself, a teacher planning a unit on mystery, or a reader who wants to know more about this genre, you'll find some great references and tips listed each Tuesday in July.

I have a confession to make. How to Write a Damn Good Mystery by James N. Frey* has recently become my bible. This is oh—a good two years after I wrote my mystery, The Wig in the Window — a mystery, by the way, I didn’t realize was a mystery while I was writing it. “What did you think you were writing?” my editor asked me, puzzled, when I revealed my ignorance. I still don’t really know. I guess I thought I was writing a story about two unlikely friends who just happened to suspect a local middle school counselor was a fugitive?

How everything would have been easier had I known about How to Write a Damn Good Mystery back then**! (Of course, that would have required knowing I was writing a mystery.) I could have spared those poor agents I queried with my ridiculously long, plotless, meandering draft that warmed up around page 150. And I could have spared myself the feeling of utter embarrassment of people having read it in that condition…

I tend to think reading about writing is a little bit like trying to learn guitar by reading about it. Did Jimi Hendrix pore over tomes about guitar solos? I suspect not. That said, if future Hendrix biographers discover  he owned a well-worn, heavily annotated copy of HOW TO PLAY A DAMN GOOD GUITAR SOLO by James N. Frey, I’d revise my opinion.  Frey knows how to break down mystery writing in a way that’s clear, basic, and useful — but he doesn’t offer formulas. As he says in his introduction, “[The book] is not a collection of tips on what to do and what not to do. It’s a guide to brainstorming, planning, plotting, drafting, rewriting, and polishing a mystery.” Sure, the title’s cheesy. (How I want to add an ‘-ed’ to the end of that ‘damn’ title!) And some of his advice is a little muddled. Still, Frey really knows what he’s talking about, and for the most part he provides very clear illustrations of his advice in action. For those new to mystery writing and looking for some guidance, I highly recommend it! It’ll save you lots of agony…

What about you? Any mystery writing resources you’ve found especially helpful?

* No, not that James Frey, thank goodness. You're thinking of the author of How to Pass Off Lies as Nonfiction and also Cheat Naive Authors as well as a little-known book called A Million Little Pieces.

**Technically I should have bought Frey’s other how-to book How to Write a Damn Good Thriller as Wig is really more of a psychological thriller for the middle-grade set:-)
*********************************************************************************

Kristen Kittscher’s debut middle grade mystery THE WIG IN THE WINDOW (Harper Children’s) will be released in Summer 2013. It follows the comic misadventures of two tween sleuths who suspect their school counselor is a dangerous fugitive — and just might be right! A former middle school English teacher, Kristen lives in Pasadena, California with her husband, Kai. When she’s not writing, you’ll find her running her after-school tutoring business or taking orders from her hopelessly spoiled cat and dog.

Facts Are Your Friends

Facts tend to get in the way, don't they? You're on a roll with your story, the scenes are flowing, the dialogue is pithily bouncing from one character to another, the logic of the action seems to be seamless. And then, here comes good ole' reality, ready to send all your beautiful fictional work into digital oblivion.

This happened to me just the other day. I was working on a scene for the third installment in Willa's adventures and I had my two characters traveling from Point A to Point B the day before Thanksgiving. That's when I realized that if they were going to where they were supposed to be going (no spoilers!) they would end up there ON Thanksgiving, in which case everything would be closed. Well, I had already written detailed scenes of them shopping, eating at restaurants and generally participating in the commerce of their chosen city, and I wasn't about to have them sitting around twiddling their thumbs, national holiday or no national holiday. Time to go back and consult the travel schedules, the maps, the  logistical whathaveyous again. Time to massage the timeline to make it all work.

These were small but important facts, which probably only affected the first chapter or two of the manuscript. No, they wouldn't make or break the story, but they were a reminder that, as caught up as I was in the fantasy, I still had to play along by the rules of reality or risk losing my credibility as a storyteller.

How about you? Where have the "facts" gotten you into trouble?

**********************************************************************************************

Elisa Ludwig's debut young adult novel PRETTY CROOKED (Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins), was released in March. It's the story of Willa Fox, a teen girl who goes Robin Hood on her rich classmates, and it's the first of a trilogy. Even though she had to extensively research pickpocketing techniques to write it, she remains a law-abiding citizen. Elisa lives in Philadelphia with her husband Jesse.

Four Easy Ways to Get "Hard Facts"

Welcome back to "Case Files from Our Detectives." Every Tuesday we blog about a general topic related to mystery writing for young people. Just to keep things interesting -- and to keep us on our toes -- we've decided to introduce A NEW THEME EVERY MONTH.


So this month, we'll be talking HARD FACTS. Mystery writing resources we turn to, from books to websites to people. Or how we wrestle with the practical matters of plotting and planning our mysteries. (Graphic organizers, anyone?) Whether you're a mystery writer yourself, a teacher planning a unit on mystery, or a reader who wants to know more about this genre, you'll find some great references and tips listed here in the coming weeks, as our sleuths reveal some of their top secrets!

Hard facts are so important in logic-driven mysteries. As a mystery writer, you're building an argument page by page. You're persuading readers that a chain of cause and effect is plausible, and that certain characters are capable of doing the things they do. Even if your story has a magical element, concrete facts will ground readers and make the mystery feel more real. All writers use creative license at some point, but in mysteries, compared with other genres, there may be less room for invention, especially when you're dealing with things like the law, police and investigative procedures, institutions, and people's jobs.

When I wrote TOKYO HEIST, I ran into a number of areas that required hard facts. One of them was in the field of art conservation, since I had a key character working in this field, and my young sleuth tries her hand at this job. The more I wrote,  the more I realized how little I understood about this career path. Here's how I got some hard facts to help me:

1. Reading
First I read articles about my characters' field of work, mostly online for the most up-to-date information. I looked up art conservation firms. I scoured job ads for art conservators at different levels of expertise. I skimmed professional journals. I tried to get a basic level of literacy about this profession and see where my characters fit in.

This was a good introduction, but the field still seemed vast. I had no grasp of what my character would do at her job every day, and the implications her work would have for my mystery plot. And so . . .
2. Taking a source out to lunch
I located a young art conservator and interviewed her over lunch. I did an informational interview, as if I'd talk to someone in a field I might be interested in working in. She seemed hesitant at first, when I mentioned my book. But once I told her I was not profiling her for the character, she visibly relaxed and opened up about her job: how she trained for it, how she got it, what she did every day, what she hated and loved about it, where she saw herself in five or ten years.

That went well, so I asked if I could visit her at work, and she said yes! And so . . .

(image from http://cathyberggren.com/)

3. Shadowing a source at work
I spent three hours shadowing my source in the print conservation department of a local museum, with her boss's permission. (I just had to promise not to divulge anything about the museum's collection or security measures). I kept my eyes and ears open. I listened to workers discuss conflicts. I looked for things that could go horribly wrong in a conservation lab (like objects that might turn into weapons in the wrong hands). I paid attention to movements, like how conservators (not conservationists, as I'd once thought) put on white gloves before handling Japanese prints. Or how they made little accordian-pleated devices out of scraps of acid-free paper to lift the corners of the glassine that covered the prints. Or how they slid into their desks without jostling things. I listened to terminology and jargon. Prints weren't just put away in boxes; they were "rehoused." Oh.

I realized that being on a work site gave me so much more insight and information than reading or talking to someone. And so . . .

4. Volunteering
I signed on for a week of volunteer work at the print conservation department. This gave me a whole new level of insight, as I got to work with the prints myself, doing measurements for a database. This was almost like walking in my character's shoes. For five blissful days, I got to dabble in a job for which I'd received no formal training. I picked up even more precise details. How else would I know you can't sneeze or talk over the prints, as a stray droplet of saliva will cause highly soluble ink to bleed?

Going almost under cover for research was one of the highlights of my writing and researching process. I learned so much about the fascinating field of art conservation, and solved several plot glitches because of the hard facts I'd picked up.

I came to love making the world of work as real and vivid as possible. Now here's hoping my next novel doesn't have a pig farmer in it . . .

*********************************************************************************

Diana was born in Seattle and now lives outside of Boston with her husband and son. TOKYO HEIST (Viking/Penguin, released June 14, 2012) is her first novel.

Criminal Writing Offenses In KidLit: The Important Life Lesson

There’s a secret to writing middle-grade—well actually, it’s not all that much of a secret. To write for the eight-to-twelve year-old kid, you have to be able to think like a kid. Remember what it was like to have your lunch stolen (or maybe just your pudding cup, but that’s bad enough, wouldn’t you say?). Feel that brick in your stomach when you’re bringing a bad report card home. Stick out your tongue and get stuck to a lamppost, or at least imagine it (since that one's sort of a bad idea and all).

When I wrote DOUBLE VISION, that connection to a twelve year-old was the most important and enjoyable part of writing Linc Baker’s (that’s my main character) story. I want my books to be fun reads, and hope to keep that kid connection going as I write the series sequels. It's fun to be twelve, even if it's just pretend.

So to me, the biggest crime a writer of middle-grade or YA can commit is to lecture to kids. I hate it. And it happens far more often than you’d think. I can’t count the times that an aspiring MG writer has told me: “I want to write my book so I can teach kids that (bullying, cheating—fill in the life lesson) is bad.

Don’t get me wrong—I get the intention of these writers. The truth is, there are many published books that have these life lessons clearly stated on the page. Usually, there’s some sort of wise grown-up delivering that message. And I think those message-driven books are a crime—just my opinion, but I’ll bet if you ask a random MGer that they’ll pass on the lesson too.

Here’s why I think this kind of writing is a crime:

1. Kids don’t need another lesson.

Think like a twelve year-old for a second: how many times a day are you told to do something, act a certain way, stay in your seat, finish your dinner—I could go on for a while, but you get my point. Kids get told what to do all day long.

2. Reading should be fun.

Do you like life lessons woven into your nighttime blockbuster read? I sincerely hope not. Let’s leave the afterschool specials in the eighties, where they belong. Reading mysteries should be fun.

3. It’s cheating.

Now, we all want to say something with our fiction, right? But being didactic with your important life lessons is just plain cheating as a writer—it’s the ultimate violation of the show-don’t-tell rule. Instead of telling your kid reader that he shouldn’t cheat on his test, show him the consequences. And add a good bicycle chase scene while you’re at it—those are so much more fun anyway.

4. We want kids to keep reading.

This one’s sort of obvious, but do you think kids will pick up books after the required reading is over if we cram them full of Valuable Life Lessons? Of course not. Make your story fun. Leave the lessons for Mom, Dad, teachers, and other parental types. They've got it covered, trust me.

I’m all for having something to say—I’m pretty opinionated myself, as you can probably tell. But write your books from the kid perspective, my fellow writerly people, not from the adults’. Or I may just come over and roll my eyes at you. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

How about you, Sleuths and Spies? Any criminal writing you want to share?

Laura Ellen: Why I write 'crime'

Welcome to "Case Files From Our Detectives." Every Tuesday, in rotation, we blog on a topic relevant to the craft of mystery writing. If you're a new follower or just discovering us now, you can check out past Case Files in the archives; they're all listed in the upper right sidebar.

Today we're continuing with our topic of CRIME in MG and YA fiction. with a bit about why Laura Ellen writes about crime. 

In her Crime Case File post, Elisa Ludwig talked about a mother who, when she discovered that the MC in Pretty Crooked is a thief, put it down, noting that she doesn't condone crime. Although I understood this mother's point -- as a mom I worry about what my kids are exposed to also -- this story kind of bothered me. It took me a little while, but I finally figured out why. Once I did, though, I felt it was important to share.

Let me explain.

The first novel I ever finished was a MG about a girl whose mom and step-father are killed in a car accident and she must go live with her real dad while her half-brother goes to live with her aunt and cousins. Now this novel will never see the light of day. It was my first attempt at a novel and is riddled with newbie-mistakes and dripping with melodrama. But, my point in writing it, besides seeing if I could finish a novel, was not to get published -- it was to work out a fear I had. At that time, my husband and I had just sat down to make out our will. I realized that if something were to happen to us, there was a good chance our kids would be seperated from one another -- my daughter going to live with her father and my son, most likely to an aunt or grandparent. The thought of them growing up without each other terrified me. So, I explored the situation the only way I knew how -- by writing about it.

Throughout my whole life this has been how I've dealt with things that scared me. From attending a new school to walking down a dark alley alone at night, anytime something made me frightened or anxious, I would play it out in my head, coming up with extreme scenarios and how I might respond, so that I'd be prepared for anything.

I think books do this for people too. Reading is a way to explore things that fascinate or scare or bother us. It is a way to look into those 'dark' things without having to actually live through them. It is a safe way to experiment and observe.

So, coming back to the mother at Elisa's book event. While I get her response -- like I said, I am a mom and yes, I watch what my kids read/watch/play -- I don't agree. No matter how well we raise our kids and no matter how sheltered we think we keep them from the monstrosities of life -- kids are people, and people live. They see, hear, observe, deduce, think, talk, and interact. In the course of doing these very human things, they will be faced with a situation or decision that their parents didn't expect or plan for them.

Whether it's that unbelievably charming bad boy in art class, or that expensive new phone everyone else has, or that downstairs window that accidentally broke -- everybody has that moment where a choice must be made. Sometimes that choice leads down the wrong road -- and once on that road ANYTHING can happen. The people that fare the best and find their way back are the ones who have thought it through, played out the vatious outcomes, seen the big picture. What better place to get that pre-exposure than in the safety of a book?

That's why I write about dark, edgy topics like crime. I like to think of the worst thing that could happen and then find a way to get my characters out of it. I do this not only because in real life bad stuff happens, but also because I want to be prepared, and  I want my readers to be preapared. I want them to know that if something similar happens, they'll not only be ready. They'll live through it.

Maybe that seems idealistic.
But no more idealistic than thinking if you don't bring that book home, your child won't be exposed to whatever is inside that book. For me, reading about life's dark side is a better solution than pretending it doesn't exist.

As a parent, my solution is to bring home that book that may have questionable content in it and read it myself -- instead of avoiding it. That way, I know what to expect and can discuss it if necessary with my kids. I can also make an informed decision on whether or not the material is too mature and should be shelved for a bit. And for those wondering about Pretty Crooked, since it is the book that began this discussion. It is a great book and definitely worth the read. :)

.

Going There: Scene of the Crime

Here's the thing. When you write about fictional crimes...you kind of have to go there. What I mean is if you're writing about a burglary, you have to figure out exactly how it went down. Did the thief come through the window, or the door? Were people home, or were they on vacation with a bunch of newspapers piled up on the porch? What about the guard dog?

This can make for some amusing brainstorming sessions, particularly if you're writing something humorous/lighthearted. Like where the burglar is a woodchuck breaking into the acorn vault of the meanest, richest squirrel in the forest. Ha-ha. Good times.

BUT...there's the other side of it, too. The side where your story isn't lighthearted, the hero isn't a squirrel, and the crime isn't about stealing some mean creature's acorns. Like in my novel WHISPERTOWN, a boy named Eli dies under mysterious circumstances. You'll have to read it to know the truth behind the tragedy, but long before the story was a completed first draft, I had to go there. An amusing brainstorming session it was not. I had to think about Eli's life, had to imagine cutting it short, then walk through the emotions of the loved ones he left behind. These are very real things, even if used in a fictional context. Such emotions can be hard to write, and hard to read. So, for writers who have to go there, some things to keep in mind:

Know Your Audience

A brutal, life and death crime may not be appropriate for all audiences. Knowing that ahead of time may stop you from taking the ill-advised step of writing a story about something particularly vile (I'm sure you don't need examples here) then trying to market it to the Middle-Grade set. I knew that my novel would broach subjects only suitable for older teens, topics like realistic violence and sex. I'm not saying there's not a skillful way to present such subject matter to younger readers, but that brings me to my next point...

Know What You Can Get Away With

If you're working on the Woodchuck Burglar story, extreme detail is probably the way to go. Go wild, write about the Acorn Vault blueprints, and the double-crossing Blue Bird, and the treetop chase scene in full High-Definition prose. Writing about the death of a classmate in a modern, recognizable high school, may require a little more subtlety. Even writing for older teens I knew I couldn't give them full access to the scene as I envisioned it. So I scaled it back, made the description of the darker moments sparse, leaving room for the reader to imagine the rest on their own.

Know the Details

In order to write sparse, you actually need to know more (much more) detail than you're probably comfortable with. The more you know, the better sense you have of what can be alluded to, or what can be excluded all together. I know more about discovering a dead body than I care to. Lucky for you, I won't be passing on my vast knowledge. Well, not all of it.

Know the Way Back

Writing mysteries is more than just dreaming up a compelling hero. You have to dream up the villain, and their crime. You have to go there. That's not the hardest part, though. Once you go into the dark place, you still have to find your way back...

If you don't think that's a manageable trip, stick to Woodchuck Burglars.

************************************************************************

Lamar "L. R." Giles writes for adults and teens. Penning everything from epic fantasy to noir thrillers, he's never met a genre he didn't like. His debut YA mystery WHISPERTOWN is about a teen in witness protection who investigates his best friend's murder and stumbles on a dark conspiracy that leads back to his own father. It will be published in Summer, 2013 by HarperCollins. He resides in Virginia with his wife and is represented by Jamie Weiss Chilton of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency. Find out more on his website, Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.

Crime in the Middle

Today we're continuing with our topic of CRIME in middle grade and YA fiction.

In my last “Case File from Our Detectives,” I floated the theory that so many mysteries for middle graders are set in the past or in fantastical worlds because sometimes it can be very difficult to create high stakes in contemporary real-world settings. In a surreal setting like, say, THE MYSTERIOUS BENEDICT SOCIETY, readers will easily accept that kids are responsible for saving the world from evil. A real world setting, in contrast, immediately raises questions about why adult authorities are so inept.

Crime and middle grade mystery are indeed a difficult mix. Scan your daily paper or online crime blotters you’ll discover that most real crimes involve a good deal of violence, sex – or, sadly, both. The crimes that aren’t grisly or sordid tend to be utterly irrelevant to middle schoolers’ lives. Tax fraud? Not exactly fascinating to sixth graders – or, for that matter, adults.

So what’s a middle grade mystery author to do, if she or he wants to keep it contemporary and incorporate crime at the heart of the mystery? Here are some of the approaches I’ve noticed:

-- Make the stakes feel high to the main character, regardless of the crime’s magnitude

Getting to the bottom of who stole a trophy doesn’t seem like a high stakes endeavor. But Ben H. Winters makes it one in THE MYSTERY OF THE MISSING EVERYTHING. It just so happens that the stolen trophy in question is the only one ever won in Mary Todd Lincoln Middle School’s history – and the principal has cancelled all fun until the trophy is back. Young Bethesda Fielding must get to the bottom of it all if school life isn’t going to be miserable. The stakes might feel low to adults, but it’s certainly not for the students at Mary Todd Lincoln.

-- Spotlight the effect of the investigations on the characters rather than the nature of the crime.

Both my mystery THE WIG IN THE WINDOW and its sequel, THE TIARA ON THE TERRACE, which I’m working on now, have very dangerous potential villains and the crimes are high stakes. To keep things from getting too crazy, I keep those possible crimes firmly off-screen/in the backstory. My focus is on the investigations (or, in the case of WIG, the cat-and-mouse game with the potentially dangerous school counselor) and how they affect Young & Yang’s friendship. For me, mysteries are a wonderful way of exploring the self-doubt and friendship tensions that middle schoolers deal with so regularly. While the dangerous potential back story fuels the plot, my young sleuths' relationship is at the forefront.

--Choose a high-stakes crime that doesn’t involve violence

A straightforward route. Art theft or fraud is a non-violent yet exciting choice. Elise Broach created a lovely, elaborate mystery around this in  MASTERPIECE. And who can forget Michelangelo at the heart of The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler?  Crimes against the environment or involving animals also resonate with middle schoolers without involving violence. Carl Hiassen’s books for middle graders are wonderful examples of very thrilling, high stakes stories about issues that kids care about. Chris Grabenstein’s latest, Riley Mack and the Other Known Troublemakers, also pulls this off well. He focuses on a gambling bank manager who frames the main character’s mom as well as a dog-knapping and puppy mill ring. While the gambling bank manager isn’t interesting to kids per se, it sure becomes so when our protagonist’s mom is involved.

These are just a few observations, of course. Can you think of other approaches middle grade authors take when incorporating crime into their mysteries?


********************************************************************************

Kristen Kittscher’s debut middle grade mystery THE WIG IN THE WINDOW (Harper Children’s) will be released in  2013. It follows the comic misadventures of two tween sleuths who suspect their school counselor is a dangerous fugitive — and just might be right! A former middle school English teacher, Kristen lives in Pasadena, California with her husband, Kai. When she’s not hard at work on the sequel to wig, THE TIARA ON THE TERRACE, you’ll find her running her after-school tutoring business or taking orders from her hopelessly spoiled pets. 

Guilty as Charged

Welcome to "Case Files From Our Detectives." Every Tuesday, in rotation, we blog on a topic relevant to the craft of mystery writing. If you're a new follower or just discovering us now, you can check out past Case Files in the archives; they're all listed in the upper right sidebar.

Today we're launching our sixth Tuesday topic, which is an essential part of mystery writing: CRIME. For the next seven weeks, we'll explore the following questions and more: What are some of the challenges we face in writing about crimes and criminals in mysteries for young people? What are some of the most compelling crimes and who are the most dastardly criminals in books that we've read? What are some real-life crimes that capture our imagination as writers? How does one craft a complex villain in fiction for kids? What happens when young people are criminals in mysteries? What kind of victims populate kids' mysteries? How do we research criminal or investigative procedures? How does the law affect young people in life and in fiction? And -- as alternative window on the topic -- what are some "writing crimes" we are sometimes guilty of?
**********************************************************************************
I'll kick off our theme today with a confession.

When I started writing Tokyo Heist, I knew very little about investigative procedures. Or about the law in general. I'd had no experience with police stations or courts -- I was routinely passed over for jury duty and never even had a traffic ticket. I had no useful relatives working in law enforcement. On the fictional front, I hadn't read much crime fiction, nor did I watch crime drama on TV. I was totally out of my league. Was I even qualified to write a story about an art heist? I hesitated to go on.

But the story beckoned to me. I kept writing. Then, around page 100, I hit a dead end.

I faced a firing squad of countless unanswered questions. For example: What kind of alarm would have gone off -- or not gone off -- in someone's house? If it didn't go off, why not? How long would police take to respond to a call? What would happen after that? What branch of the police would investigate a high-profile art heist? When would detectives turn it over to another agency?

By midorisyu from Japan (Ueno park police01) via Wikimedia Commons

More problems loomed. I was taking my story to Japan. How did law enforcement work in that country?
What level of detectives would my characters be dealing with? Would police or agents there work with American detectives, or independently? Which country's laws is the criminal bound to when international borders are crossed? What was the statute of limitations for stolen art there?

For awhile, I was a fugitive, on the run from my manuscript and its legal problems. But I finally faced my ignorance and surrendered. I started researching, tackling just one question at a time.

Some information, like about basic police procedures after a break-in, was readily found online. (Careful -- procedures can vary by city or state). Other information was not so easily found. For the tricky questions, I emailed or called experts, who were happy to help me; some even let me run my plot points or scenes by them later, and they evaluated them for plausibility. Sources I consulted included:

• The president of a home security company
• A police chief
• The FBI (they have a media outreach department and apparently are used to dealing with questions from novelists and screenwriters)
• Lawyers
• Security guards
• Japanese residents familiar with legal procedures in that country

Once I had answers, my story began to take off again. I avoided dead ends I'd been heading toward. Now that I was armed with new knowledge, even more plot ideas came to me, as well as new characters -- including quite a few law enforcement officials and detectives who had been strangely missing from the manuscript (off on a coffee and doughnut break, I guess).

The facts of the law, and more people to uphold it, instantly put more narrative pressure on the story. They added time pressure and tension. Sometimes they presented roadblocks, when a plot development I desired would not be legally possible. But then, quite often, I'd find some new way around that roadblock, and a plot twist would result.

In my earliest draft attempts, did I think I was somehow above the law? That I didn't need to know much about it in order to get through a draft? Yes. Guilty as charged.

Now I try to learn all I can about the law, police, and investigative procedures. I try to get to know the friendly law enforcement officers in my neighborhood. I pay more attention to lawyers, detectives, FBI agents and law officers whenever I see them on TV, whether on the news or in dramas. And I try to formulate my research questions and line up potential sources very early in a draft. Learning about the law, and laying down the law in my mysteries, springs me from the prison of indecision and frees me up to write.

*********************************************************************************

Diana was born in Seattle and now lives outside of Boston with her husband and son. TOKYO HEIST (Viking/Penguin, coming June 14, 2012) is her first novel.

What's Your Writing Setting?

So....settings in mysteries. Wow, my fellow detectives have covered it all! It's always a little intimidating going last on these themes. First of all, I already feel a little like a fraud blogging about how to write mysteries because it's kind of mystery to me, but second, all the great topics have been taken! Like...Setting as Character, Being There Even If You Aren't, Settings in Middle-Grade Mysteries, Finding Your Way Through an Alien Landscape, and How Sashimi Led to My Novel's Setting.

Yeah, I was going to write all those. :-)

So what's left? Well, I started thinking about my own setting. You know, where I do my writing. You always read about how writers have rituals and routines to get in the mood for writing. A lot of these center around where they write. So I asked my fellow detectives to share a little about their own writing settings. And here's what they had to say:

Diana Renn: Here's the writing corner in my office.

I don't usually have the crime scene tape up -- it's something I was measuring for a promotional thing I'm doing with my publisher -- but sadly, it doesn't look so out of place in that disaster. I'd probably welcome a hard hat too. I write surrounded by cascading piles of paper and books. What you see here are projects (marketing, researching, drafting) all converging on each other. This space is actually clean compared to when I was into heavy revisions on Tokyo Heist last year -- then, for months,I had graphs, charts, and an enormous white board calendar all over the walls. Once a year I do a huge paperwork purge, and I can see I'm getting to that point. Because of the inherent dangers here, I've taken to fleeing the scene, writing in my local library or otherwise on the run.

Talia Vance: My favorite spot to write is the corner of my couch, complete with a cozy blanket and the Saint Bernard of Doom, Huckleberry.  There is even  a Saint Bernard in Spies and Prejudice that was inspired by him.

And here's Elisa Ludwig's writing setting: 

As for mine, well, behold:

I have an awesome office. I can say that because I had absolutely nothing to do with creating it. My husband did it all. Last summer, we were remodeling our bedroom and the wallpaper--oh, the wallpaper!--was taking FOR-EV-ER to remove. Finally, I took our sons to visit my brother and his family so that my husband could finish up the project in peace. Well, three days later, I came home to not only a redone bedroom, but a completely new office! New paint, new hardwood floor, new ceiling fan. And the best part of the story? When I asked him how he knew what colors I wanted, he said that he was standing in the hardware store with a handful of paint chips, trying to decide, when he realized that one was called "Storyteller."

Awww.

Unfortunately, it only looked like the photo for about a day. My office usually more closely resembles Diana's, with piles of papers and books. And more often than not, an extra kid or two, as well. Here's a more typical setting for my writing.

Still my office, but, yeah. That's my novel revision on my laptop--and that's a kid practicing percussion six inches from my elbow. PERCUSSION. Luckily, I work in an elementary school and have nerves of steel. And headphones.

So what about you? Where do your mysteries unfold? Do you have a special spot to write? Tell us about it in the comments.

---

W.H. Beck is an elementary school librarian by day and a middle grade author by night (or sometimes, really early mornings). Her first novel, MALCOLM AT MIDNIGHT, stars classroom pets at midnight and is available in September from Houghton Mifflin.

Case Files from Our Detectives: Setting as Character

Photo by T. Roger Thomas

Over the past several weeks our detectives have been discussing Case Files on Crime Scenes a.k.a. Settings. My Case File today is about using setting as a character.

While I never intended to set all my stories in Alaska, so far, I have. It isn't just because I grew up and lived there for over thirty years -- as a military wife, I have lived and visited many, many places that would make for great settings. And it isn't just because Alaska offers such a pristine setting -- although it does, with its forests, lakes, rivers, mountains, glaciers, etc.

No, I think it is the character appeal of Alaska; the unique challenges and differences that the land offers which can disrupt and aggravate, twist and exacerbate, a crime or mystery that make setting my stories in Alaska so appealing. The endless darkness in the winter, the endless daylight in the summer, the harshness of the winters, the deadly forest fires of the summer, the absolute isolation that one can be engulfed in if you stray only moments off the path -- mystery, intrigue, simplicity, rugidness, peace, severity, safety, danger -- Alaska can offer up anything you want it to and create conflict and complexity in your story just as any character would.

In my novel BLIND SPOT Alaska is less character, more setting, but its harsh winter does hide the truth about a classmate's death from my main character, Roz, for nearly six months, which adds to the immediacy of the thriller when Roz learns the truth. In my current work-in-progress (which for now is titled MURDER POINT) however, Alaska is a definite character. My main character, Kat, heads to an Alaskan campground to meet the father she's never known and discovers murder instead. I use the isolation of the campground, the contrast between Kat's lifestyle in D.C. and this new rustic lifestyle, as well as the all-day sunlight to amp up the threats, conflicts, and suspense in this story, giving Anchor Point, Alaska just as big a part in the story as any other character.

While yes, Alaska lends itself to this type of writing, any setting can be used as a character in a mystery or thriller, by simply finding ways that the setting, like any antogonist,  can disrupt and deepen the danger. Creating limitations to a setting is a quick way to do this -- maybe there is a high cliff on one side of your setting that can't be passed or floorboards that have rotted that are too dangerous to walk on -- anything that restricts what your character can do. Then you can create a situation in which your main character's only option is to head towards those limitations you have set. This immediately amps up the suspense and deepens the danger, and as your character heads there, you can use that setting you have created to hinder her every move, just as an atogonist would. Some of the most intriguing stories I've read are those where the setting takes part in the plot just as much as the characters do. But truth be told -- I do it because it can be great fun using the setting to put charcaters in as much peril as their antagonists do!
_____________________________________________

What if a classmate went missing right after you fought with her at a party and she was later found dead? What if you couldn't remember anything after that fight? Not even how you got home? Would you tell the police the truth? Or would you lie about what you remember until you could find out what really happened that night?

16-year-old Roswell Hart finds herself in this very predicament in Laura Ellen's YA thriller, BLIND SPOT (October 2012, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Being There Even If You Aren't...

In the last few "Case files..." we've explored settings. We've covered some sashimi inspiration, the value of research, and how Middle-Grade does it. Today I want to talk about making you be there, even if you've never been there. 

Setting is done well when a writer transfers the images in their head into yours without being a dictator about it. You don't have to see it the EXACT SAME WAY I DO, so long as we're close. It's the trick of being descriptive without describing (Did I sound all mystical-wise like Mr. Miyagi...or Mr. Han for you modernists?).

When I wrote WHISPERTOWN, I loosely modeled Stepton after my own small hometown of Hopewell, Virginia. My goal was to remind you of YOUR small town, even if you've never lived in one (there I go being mystical-wise again). Let me elaborate, there's a scene where my hero, Nick, who's new to the town, travels into a depressed area. He notices a number of abandoned houses with chipped paint and overgrown lawns featuring  Foreclosure signs mounted on stakes. Now, maybe I'll tell you that the house is blue. Or, maybe I'll say the Foreclosure sign has some Real Estate Lady's smiling face on it. But I won't give you much. Why? Because I want YOU to fine tune it, making it your own.

My blue might be Navy, while yours is Sky. My house might be a Victorian, while yours is a Rancher. My Real Estate Lady might look like Harvard Business School candidate, while yours looks like a kindly old Grandmother. As for the street Nick's on, maybe you're already thinking about a street you've traveled where the houses are suddenly empty. And the town, maybe you've seen one like it, where half the city is affluent and comfortable, while the other half struggles to get by. My goal, is to give you just enough to remind you of what you know, so that you might walk in the character's shoes, and go where they go without actually going there (Mystical-Wise).

I won't claim that it's easy, or that I always do it well. It's a balancing act, the difference between too-much, and not enough. Can you think of any books where you've seen details setting descriptions done well? Or done poorly? If so, drop me a note in the comments.

********************************************************************

Lamar "L. R." Giles writes for adults and teens. Penning everything from epic fantasy to noir thrillers, he's never met a genre he didn't like. His debut YA mystery WHISPERTOWN is about a teen in witness protection who investigates his best friend's murder and stumbles on a dark conspiracy that leads back to his own father. It will be published in Summer, 2013 by HarperCollins. He resides in Virginia with his wife and is represented by Jamie Weiss Chilton of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency. Find out more on his website, Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.

Settings in Middle-Grade Mysteries

Our Tuesday “Case Files from our Detectives” feature is currently spotlighting Crime Scenes, a.k.a. Settings. What goes into choosing and researching settings? How can mysteries grow out of their settings? How do we bring places or time periods to life on the page, finding the right details? Two weeks ago Diana Renn described how a novel was born from an unexpected challenge she faced while traveling in Japan. PRETTY CROOKED author Elisa Ludwig showed howshe created the setting for her mystery entirely from research. Today, Kristen Kittscher explores settings in middle-grade mysteries.

Here’s a riddle for you. What do Shawn Thomas Odyssey’s THE WIZARD OF DARK STREET, Trenton Lee Stewart’s MYSTERIOUS BENEDICT SOCIETY, Elise Broach’s MASTERPIECE, Rebecca Stead’s WHEN YOUR REACH ME, Matthew Kirby’s ICEFALL and Nancy Springer’s Enola Holmes mysteries all have in common?

The books are disparate enough that it might be hard to notice any shared traits — other than that they are all, to one extent or another — middle-grade mysteries that were published within the last five years. If you look again, though, you’ll realize that not one of these books is set in a realistic contemporary setting. Broach’s MASTERPIECE, while set in modern day New York, involves talking insects. Stead takes us back to 1970s Manhattan, Springer plants us in Victorian England, and Odyssey creates a magical world. ICEFALL recreates a fantastical ancient Norway and Trenton Lee Stewart creates the fictional Stonetown Harbor and Nomansen Island as the backdrop for his intrepid gang’s adventures. 

In fact, I’d go out on a limb and that it’s much more common for middle-grade mysteries to be set in unusual, fantastic, or historical settings than in modern towns. YA mysteries, on the other hand, seem much more rooted in contemporary settings. Why is that?

Part of it may be simply that middle-graders have much greater thirst for adventure and fantastical, over-the-top worlds. However, as someone who set my own mystery in a slightly off-kilter, surreal version of a contemporary suburb, I have an inkling there’s more to it: one of the greatest challenges of writing middle-grade mysteries is keeping stakes high while still creating conditions in which the kids solve the crime on their own. The moment things get too dangerous is the same moment our readers could say, “Hey, why isn’t the FBI all over this?” There are ways around this in contemporary mysteries, of course, but many of them involve peopling a story with bumbling law enforcement and clueless or absent parents.

Skewing reality a bit or setting the story in the past lifts that obstacle and helps readers suspend disbelief that much more easily. Sure, in real life it might be wiser to call your parents on your cell rather than foil an evil man set on destroying the world, but on surreal Nomansan Island in Stewart’s MYSTERIOUS BENEDICT SOCIETY, that’s not an option. Similarly, life in the 1970s Upper West Side of Manhattan (WHEN YOU REACH ME) affords kids much more investigative freedom than life in Manhattan would today. (Although: Kirsten Miller wisely gets around this in KIKI STRIKE: INSIDE THE SHADOW CITY by setting Ananka Fishbein’s story in the literal underworld of New York, amidst rat-filled tunnels where it feels like anything can happen.)

What do you think? Have I cherry-picked my examples, or are middle-grade mysteries indeed more often set in fantastical or historical worlds? And, if so, do you think it has anything to do with helping along our willing suspension of disbelief?

*********************************************************************************

Kristen Kittscher’s debut middle grade mystery THE WIG IN THE WINDOW (Harper Children’s) will be released in  2013. It follows the comic misadventures of two tween sleuths who suspect their school counselor is a dangerous fugitive — and just might be right! A former middle school English teacher, Kristen lives in Pasadena, California with her husband, Kai. When she’s not writing, you’ll find her running her after-school tutoring business or taking orders from her hopelessly spoiled pets.

Finding Your Way Through an Alien Landscape

Pretty Crooked is set in the Arizona town of Paradise Valley. The town is critical to the story in numerous ways. The story had to be set in a wealthy community (PV has a median home price of $1.74 million). I liked the Sonoran Desert setting for its dramatic possibilities, how it could create a sense of novelty and exoticism for Willa at first, and later, a sense of alienation and loneliness. Paradise Valley seemed to fit the bill on all fronts. Best of all, its name, of course, symbolizes Willa's feelings about the place when she first moves there.

As I sat down to write, there was just one problem: I live in Philadelphia. I'd only been to Arizona once, and most of that time was spent at a hotel attending conference meetings.

So how to conjure up a place you have never been? Research, research, research. I looked at photographs, weather patterns, travel books, nature blogs, horticultural websites, real estate listings, shopping sites, and Yelp. Google Maps came in handy when figuring out what things looked like from the perspective of a car driving down a particular road. YouTube had some amazing tourist videos that brought the area to life for me. And good old Wikipedia had the demographic and architectural information I needed. Where needed, I relied on good old-fashioned imagination.

Now, I have no idea if someone who lives in Paradise Valley will find this portrayal to be believable. But I do know that the setting remains an essential component of the finished novel–and it's almost, to use the cliche, a character in and of itself. Just as I might get really invested in my own character, I fell in love with this setting as I wrote the book, and hope to go there someday to see it in person. Ultimately, I just can't imagine Pretty Crooked taking place anywhere else.

How Sashimi Led to My Novel's Setting

Welcome to "Case Files From Our Detectives." Every Tuesday, we take turns blogging on a particular topic relevant to the craft of mystery writing. Since launching this blog in September, we've discussed the following topics: How We Came to Mystery Writing, Writing in the Dark,"Book 'Em": Our Favorite Mysteries of 2011/Most Anticipated Mysteries of 2012, and Sleuths. If you're a new follower or just discovering us now, you can check out past Case Files in the archives; they're all listed in the upper right sidebar.

Today we're launching our fifth Tuesday topic: Crime Scenes, a.k.a. Settings. For the next seven weeks, we'll explore the following questions and more: What goes into choosing and researching settings? How can mysteries grow out of their settings? How do we bring places or time periods to life on the page, finding the right details? (And we might even offer behind-the-scenes looks at our personal settings -- our writing spaces!)

I've always been drawn to books with foreign settings, and mysteries are no exception. Growing up, my favorite Nancy Drews and Agatha Christies were the ones set in the most exotic locales. Murder on the Orient Express. The Mysterious Mannequin. As an adult reader with a fierce case of wanderlust, I still love learning about another culture even as I'm puzzling through clues or racing to the end of a fantastic story. But deciding to set a novel mostly in Japan was a mysterious journey that caught me off guard.

A few summers ago, my husband and I were traveling in Japan for our honeymoon. After some urban experiences, we ventured out to a remote countryside ryokan, or inn. Crucial to this story is the fact that neither of us eat sashimi. I know. It's sad. But my husband, for various reasons, does not eat fish in any form. And I, as a general rule, do not eat uncooked foods, particularly while traveling. (Bad experience with undercooked shrimp in South America. Vicious amoeba. Hospital. You get the idea). Anyway, we were traveling around Japan with our handy-dandy notes about food restrictions, neatly written out in Japanese, ready to present to non-English speakers at restaurants and inns. We'd even drawn a fish with a line through it for added clarity.

Of course, by the time we reached this remote mountain inn, the handy-dandy note had vanished. We were too fatigued from the long and confusing journey to attempt to communicate our food restrictions. But no matter, we decided; surely we were in a fish-free zone. This was a mountain inn.

To our surprise, that night the okami-san -- the inn manager -- came to our room and served up an amazing multi-course meal, with -- yep -- sashimi. And plenty of it. Glistening and pink, and no doubt very high grade. Everything else on the plate was divine -- artfully prepared, indescribably delicious. We hovered over the sashimi with our chopsticks. We visualized eating it. We poked at it. We debated. And yet -- and yet -- we couldn't.

The okami-san was so gracious and welcoming, popping in now and then to check on us. We couldn't politely reject the raw fish or just leave it untouched on our plates. Nor, we discovered, could we dispose of it. There was no trash can in the room. There was one in the common bathroom down the hall. But we could hardly leave raw fish in an open wastebasket there without it attracting some kind of attention in the sticky summer heat. Curious cats milled outside our window, but leaning out and feeding them the sashimi would definitely attract attention. We were the only gaijin in the inn. Any cultural gaffe would be attributed to us.

When she left the room next, we hashed out a plan. We would hide the fish and dispose of it in a public garbage can first thing in the morning. We shook plastic bags out of our luggage, popped in the sashimi, and snaked the bags up the sleeves of our yukata (standard-issue robes in Japanese inns), just one second before the smiling okami-san returned to clear our plates. We then transferred the fish to a corner of the room and hid it under more bags for the night.

The mystery of the non-existent trash bins. (Photo http://new2japan.com)

At dawn the next morning, we gathered our bags of rejected fish and stole out of the inn, in search of a public trash bin. Not that we'd recognize one if we saw it. What did trash bins look like in Japan? We had no clue. No potential garbage cans presented themselves to us. And yet, the streets were immaculate.

We drew curious stares from people walking or biking to work or heading to a farmers market. Two gaijin skulking around in semi-darkness, carrying reeking plastic bags? Yeah. Real subtle.

Then I remembered having read somewhere that it's very difficult to throw things away in Japan. There are numerous laws about what is trash and what is recycled, what type of trash goes out, and when, and where. The American urban landmark of an overflowing trash bin on every street corner wasn't to be found here.

But a powerful feeling seized me as we skulked around the mountain village. This is like being in a mystery novel. I became hyper-alert to my surroundings, zeroing in on small details I hadn't noticed before, and which -- in the context of our stealthy actions -- suddenly took on meaning. People emerging from the shadows were no longer innocuous passers-by; they were potential spies, or thieves, or detectives, or cops. I formulated questions in my mind: How does it feel to attract unwanted attention? How do you try to escape detection, when as a foreigner you completely stand out? What kind of a story could take place here?

We never did find a public trash bin that morning. But we did feed some happy cats down by a river. We'd disposed of the fish, and I'd gained an idea. I knew I would return to Japan in my writing. I knew I would set a novel there. I strongly suspected it might be a mystery.

The novel that has resulted, years later, contains no foreigners trying to dispose of sashimi. (In fact, all my characters eat raw fish and love it!) I don't even have scenes in the mountain village where we were. But the feeling of being exposed and confused and lost in Japan became integral to my eventual story. I tapped into those feelings for many scenes. Instead of the facts of my experience, I have characters who sneak around and try to solve problems when they don't know the lay of the land. Though I later researched setting specifics -- meticulously -- in drafting the novel, I tried not to. In drafting, I relied on my emotional travelogue to jog my memory, rather than my travel itinerary. I wanted a novel, not a Frommers guide.

I really don't think I chose my main setting, Japan. I think that it chose me. It popped out of an alley and grabbed me that day, and never let me go.

I've learned from that experience to pay attention to mysterious events and feelings that I might encounter anywhere -- while traveling in far flung places or just in my own neighborhood. I try to pay attention to that state of heightened alertness and see where it might lead me.

I guess I wasn't really looking for a trash bin that morning, in a mountain village in Japan. I was looking for a story. And I'm happy I found it there.

****************************************************************************

Diana was born in Seattle and now lives outside of Boston with her husband and son. She also works as a freelance writer and editor in educational publishing, and has authored several ESL textbooks (which is way more exciting than it sounds). TOKYO HEIST (Viking/Penguin, coming June 14, 2012) is her first nove