We here at Sleuths, Spies and Alibis are thrilled to celebrate the release of TOKYO HEIST by our fearless detective-leader, Diana Renn. This week we will be talking about Diana's fabulous YA mystery, starting today with an amazing giveaway.
TOKYO HEIST is about a summer vacation that takes an adventuresome turn. So now it's your turn: We want to know all about your best and worst summer vacations ever.
Answer in the comments below for a chance to win a signed copy of TOKYO HEIST and a TOKYO HEIST swag bundle (bookmarks, stickers and special crime scene tape!) or a signed ARC of the MG mystery MALCOLM AT MIDNIGHT by detective W.H. Beck. Tweet about the giveaway, follow us or add TOKYO HEIST to Goodreads for more chances to win!
This week Internal Affairs is on the case! We’re turning our interrogation spotlight on our own Elisa Ludwig, whose debut PRETTY CROOKED (Katherine Tegen Books / HarperCollins) is out in stores today.
PRETTY CROOKED is the first of a three book thriller/mystery-series about Willa Fox, a teen girl who turns Robin Hood, bilking her rich classmates and re-distributing it in the form of care packages to scholarship students.
Elisa studied writing at Vassar College and Temple University. Even though she had to extensively research pick-pocketing techniques to write PRETTY CROOKED, she remains a law-abiding citizen. She likes in Philadelphia with her husband, Jess, and her cat, Beau a.k.a. Bread. When she’s not writing for teens, she’s cooking or writing about food for The Philadelphia Inquirer and other publications.
We have to admire Elisa's grace under pressure. She took being interrogated by a fellow detective very calmly...
Here's the transcript of the proceedings:
Kristen Kittscher: Your protagonist Willa Fox takes to crime in order to upend the classist social structure at an elite prep school. Though her motives are noble, she’s still a lawbreaker. To what extent was it challenging to have a “criminal” as your protagonist in a book for teens?
Elisa Ludwig: It was fairly challenging, for sure. I wanted Willa to be likable and sympathetic and I wanted readers to root for her, but I also didn't want to go condoning thievery as a real solution to problems. So it was a tricky line to walk. In the end, I like to think of it as a fantasy read—it's just fun to put yourself in Willa's shoes and imagine what it would be like to do what she does—without the risk of getting caught, of course.
Kristen Kittscher: Pretty Crooked has a tight plot and fantastic pacing. You mentioned in previous interviews that you didn’t used to rely on outlines before, but you did while writing this novel. Can you tell us a little bit about your transformation from a “pantser” to an outliner, and what you learned in the process?
Elisa Ludwig:Yes, I was a diehard pantser. Even when I had an outline, I always deviated from it, preferring to let the characters guide me. Pretty Crooked and its sequel are so action-packed that they demanded a more structured approach. For the first time I used a very detailed outline so that just about every aspect of the story was thought out ahead of time. In the end, using the outline made the writing process so much more fun. I would approach the keyboard knowing exactly what I had to do and since I'd thought it out scene by scene, there was very little angst about decision-making. That meant I could concentrate on the fun stuff, like filling in the details and sprucing up the dialogue. I still struggle with the amount of work that has to go into an outline up front, and I can't always understand the ramifications of characters' actions until I'm actually writing it through, but I think outlining has helped me understand a lot more about the structure of novels.
Kristen Kittscher: Willa Fox undertakes various complex capers in Pretty Crooked. She picks pockets and locks, and even breaks into a mansion. We’re in The Interrogation Room, after all, so we have to ask: how did you learn so much about stealingJ?
Elisa Ludwig:I researched everything online. While it probably would've been more fun to go on ride-alongs, not knowing any real criminals was kind of a limitation. Instead, I pretty much stuck to Google, blogs and some very interesting YouTube videos. I must admit that I had a great time, too.
Kristen Kittscher: Pretty Crooked sets up a tantalizing mystery that will extend into PRETTY SLY, the next in the series. What challenges did you face in setting up a mystery in one book and carrying it into the next?
Elisa Ludwig:It was tricky because you don't want to disappoint the reader by leaving everything hanging dramatically but on the other hand Pretty Crooked had so much going on as it was with Willa's story that the mystery had to remain more of a C plotline. Some mystery series are devoted to smaller more episodic mysteries in each book with one overarching mystery carrying across them. In this case, it's more like one mystery leads to the next.
Kristen Kittscher: Even though there’s a mystery at Pretty Crooked’s heart, it’s also contemporary YA. Can you talk about how you approached balancing suspense with description of Willa’s social world and conflicts?
Elisa Ludwig:Yes, at the end of the day this novel is set in high school, so it had to have all of the trappings of cliques and classes and cafeterias (though in this case, it's a fancy one). Willa's desire to become a thief comes out of her social interactions so all of that had to be in there and had to be emphasized before she could go doing any of her badass maneuvers. So I think it became a unique challenge, setting up this world in a familiar way while trying to cue readers that this book was going to take a different turn at some point. I guess the key was trying to keep the story rooted in Willa's head and what matters to her.
Kristen Kittscher: Willa’s both a detective on the trail of a mystery and a lawbreaker. Who’s your favorite fictional sleuth? Your favorite literary rebel?
Elisa Ludwig:Hmm. Favorite fictional sleuth would have to be Cassie Maddox from the Tana French books because she's tough and smart and complex. As far as rebels go, I will go with a book I read recently: Pierre Anthon from Nothing by Janne Teller. He's the kid that dares to suggest that nothing matters and he pays the price for his rebellion, but I found him fascinating and I wanted to know more about him.
Kristen Kittscher: Lastly, what upcoming events or writing projects would you like us to know about?
Elisa Ludwig:Well, I have a bunch of readings/signings/talks lined up for March and April (details on my website, www.elisaludwig.com). And PRETTY SLY is on its way for next March. Now, onto the third book!
Thank you for having me, Kristen and fellow SSAs! It's been fun to be on the other side of the swinging light!
You'll be happy to know that Internal Affairs has cleared you of the charges, Elisa. Thanks for taking the time to talk with us.
We are pretty excited here at Sleuths, Spies, and Alibis this month. Pretty Crooked by Elisa Ludwig, one of our own detectives, releases March 13th!
For our Mystery Monday writing prompt this month we are sponsoring a Pretty Crooked Mystery Box giveaway!
Intrigued? Want to win one of these boxes?Just answer the question posed in the Pretty Crooked book trailer below and you could be one of three winners! Winners will be announced on Monday March 19th, 2012.
CONTEST UPDATE: We have a winner! JEN PETRO-ROY has won a copy of VANISHED by Sheela Chari and a copy of WITH A NAME LIKE LOVE by Tess Hilmo. Congratulations, Jen! And thanks to everyone who entered last week's contest. Our next Interrogation Room suspect, Josh Berk, is up on November 19.
I solved my first mystery when I was three years old by spying on my older sister. She and my mom would huddle at the kitchen table every day after kindergarten, staring at strange symbols in exotic looking books. The whole operation seemed mighty intriguing, so I'd sneak into the living room and strain my ears to hear what was being said. It took some serious sleuthing, but once I cracked the code, I was hooked. There was no stopping me then. I could open any book and unlock the mysteries inside with my new decoding abilities.
Part of my collection.
And oh my gosh, were there plenty of mysteries to be found! The library was full of them: Nancy Drew, Encyclopedia Brown, Alfred Hitchcock, Hardy Boys . . . I devoured anything and everything that even hinted at intrigue.
But soon, I started to feel a bit, well, cheated.
How come all these kids in all these books always stumbled upon mysteries? Ghosts in the attic, stowaways, jewelry thieves, secret doors in closets, alien ships . . . .Was I stupid? Was I not looking hard enough? Why couldn't I find any mysteries to solve?
At first I blamed my surroundings. I lived in the heavily wooded, remote outskirts of Fairbanks, Alaska where exciting events were as sparse as television reception. Of course there were no crimes to solve! I wasn't living in the city like Nancy Drew, visiting old inns or flea markets and meeting new people from foreign countries. I was living in boring Alaska, visiting nothing but boring trees and lakes and meeting no one but the same boring neighbors and the occasional moose or bear or red fox or rabbit . . .
Then I realized that was a cop out. Alaska was exactly the type of place Nancy or Frank or Joe would travel to and discover a mystery.
No. I just wasn't looking hard enough.
So I took a closer look around me . .. . and began asking myself: What if?
* What if that big orange toadstool is really the main meeting place for a community of gnomes? * What if when I pass under the power lines in the woods, I am actually passing through a time warp? * What if that stray dog with one blue eye and one brown eye is really a werewolf? * What if the old hermit living in the log cabin up the road is really a fugitive?
With every "what if" I asked, I discovered another world, and I liked it. I'd cracked the code once again, and I never looked at anything the same after that.
I discovered it didn't matter where or what or who. There was a secret hiding in everything, and I liked finding it. What's more, I found I liked sharing it. So I started writing my "what ifs" down. Now, everything I write has some element of mystery or intrigue or conspiracy. It's a part of me; it's what I do.
And you can too.
Simply ask yourself:
What if?
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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 (Fall 2012, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
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We are giving away an autographed book from our next Interrogation Room suspect! To enter the contest, simply comment on any of the Sleuths Spies and Alibis posts between Tuesday October 4 and Friday October 14. Contest closes October 14 at midnight, EST. The winner will be announced on Monday, October 17. One comment = one entry in our drawing; limit one per day.
We here at Sleuths, Spies and Alibis are thrilled to celebrate the release of TOKYO HEIST by our fearless detective-leader, Diana Renn. This week we will be talking about Diana's fabulous YA mystery, starting today with an amazing giveaway.
