Shelly Frome - Writer and Novelist
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The editor and the cozy Mystery

11/3/2017

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From what I’ve discovered, once a publisher of cozies thinks your manuscript has potential, you’ve passed the first hurdle. You’re then assigned a development editor to make sure the storyline is both fresh and marketable.  

Fresh meaning not at all the same old, same old, like a Miss Marple, with its sedentary armchair detective, homey setting, and unpleasant victims, thus leaving the reader free to focus on the puzzle. At the outset, the sleuth should be engaging, the setting and circumstances intriguing, the victim somehow worthy of the quest, etc. But that’s just for starters.  

For example, take my transatlantic tale centering on two sister villages located on both sides of “the pond”. If I had looked at bestselling author Louise Penny’s Still Life more closely, I wouldn’t have been left to underscore the overview. Penny’s story starts off with the demise of Miss Jane Neal, a seventy-six-year-old spinster, walking in the woods by the remote village of Three Pines on the Quebec border. The narrative immediately pulls back as we get to know Miss Jane’s special world, meet her neighbors and become acquainted with her relationships. Moreover, a flashback takes us to a confrontation over her “Still Life” painting. 

In other words, as my assigned Australian editor insisted, you can’t just get on with it. The circumstances surrounding my rambling tour guide’s venture had to be fully established. The demise of Emily’s beloved mentor and father figure was fine as a catalyst, but what’s the underpinning? Where are we? What is Emily’s Connecticut village like during the leaf-peeper season? What led to her mentor’s dreadful fall? How does she feel about the three siblings she’s slated to guide across the pond now that her life has been turned topsy-turvy? 

Next, segue to the second pass or what my editor calls “the nitty gritty.” Anything and everything that might give the reader pause has to  be dealt with. Why is Emily meeting Harriet (a person of interest and Emil’s chief client) in Bath of all places? How did Harriet’s testy note wind up in the rose garden in Penmead? What is Emily’s prior experience venturing into the foggy, mist-sodden moors? And on and on it goes through the whole narrative.  

As I put aside my hard won sense of drive and pace, there’s no telling what I’ll be up against next. For a writer of crime fiction, the cozy is apt to seem like a foreign country. They do things differently there.
 
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Genre, Pat Gligor and the Feminine

2/16/2017

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When you keep receiving the same guidelines, you can’t help considering it to be received wisdom. Especially when you’ve submitted two mysteries with female protagonists and your respondents are all women. Take these examples from a female publisher, acquisitions editor, an agent, and a president of the Southeast chapter of Mystery Writers of America: “Remember, there must be constant proliferating tension . . . an impossible quest . . . a compelling hook in the first three pages . . . a worthy opponent as the stakes continue to escalate . . .”
   
As it happens, while I wait for the upshot, I’ve been reading Facebook and “Mystery We Write” pal Pat Gligor’s Mixed Messages. And I’m beginning to appreciate a less driven approach.

If memory serves, here is the progression of, approximately, the first quarter of the story.  In the background, every now and then, there are radio bulletins intimating that somewhere not far from a neighborhood in Cincinnati, a serial killer is targeting women. In the foreground, a sensitive housewife is concerned about her marriage and the little trials and tribulations of her two young children. Her husband has become ill-tempered, taken to drink, and flies off the handle when the subject of finances and/or their little boy’s possible ADD is brought up. In turn, the wife wishes she had someone to confide in and is considering taking a part time secretarial job at the church to help make ends meet. Chapters are devoted to the husband’s woes and longings, and the wife’s former confidant-- a retired police officer who mulls over his own drinking problem, a stint as a prisoner of war, other past and present circumstances, and catches the latest bulletin about the Westwood Strangler. There are also chapters devoted to other people who touch on the housewife’s life, and a later scene from her priest’s point of view as he lectures her about the sanctity of marriage, followed by his own reminiscing over an early altercation with a high school girl, a retreat to seminary which, in effect, leaves his shy sister susceptible to the wrong crowd and death at the hands of a drunk driver by the name of Malone.  

In short, as a setup, a sense of unease permeates, along with an alcoholic thread, a kind wife who wishes to make things whole again, touchy encounters within the wife’s immediate circle, and intimations of something dicey out on the periphery.

At the same time, I recall a conversation I had with Laura Lippman about one of her noted crime novels. This particular tale focused on the effect of a father’s desertion on the lives of family members and was sprinkled with a cold case and a little detection. This progression, she told me, was what she was interested in and not the same old, same old crime format.

And so, aside from the fact that some crime writers have a more feminine perspective, perhaps these lady publishing pros I’ve been dealing with are telling me something rather simple. Perhaps they’re saying if you’re going to use the standard hero or heroine’s impossible journey, make sure it’s fresh and compelling.   

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In Pursuit of the final draft

12/6/2016

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It goes without saying that agents and publishers continue to advise fiction writers to make certain their final draft is ready before making a submission.  
 
What this means, of course, is hard to say. Relying on the pointers listed in any of the sure-fire guides to perfecting your story is no guarantee of readiness. In fact, there’s even a “counter intuitive” book out that numbers among the secrets of success “a conflict that’s compelling and ironic before and after the surprise”--whatever in the world that means.
 
In an attempt to get a better handle on the market, I attended a major writers conference in Portland, Oregon and a smaller one in Orlando sponsored by the Mystery Writers of America. In Portland, an “expert in story engineering” offered a series of workshops claiming that attendees had no chance to submit a professional draft unless they followed his formula starting with a gripping opening that inevitably plays itself out. In Orlando, I asked noted crime novelist Laura Lippman why her tale started out with an embezzling father and his mistress on the lam and then shifted to the effect on the lives of the man’s family. She told me that’s what she was interested in: relationships and the aftermath, not the same-old story engineering.  
 
Perhaps that’s the key. What your story is really about and where it might fall short.  
 
Recently, after two “it’s not ready yet” responses, I decided that, before sending it out again, I needed a seasoned reader/writer who could experience my narrative for the first time and earmark those moments when she stopped reading because something didn’t quite jell. When, because at this stage in the process I’m much too close to it, it might have the same now-hold-on-a-minute effect on an agent or acquisitions editor.  
 
As a result, I found a seasoned colleague who offered to do a diagnostic reading for a small fee. After dealing with the underlying shortcomings she noted, I now truly have a final draft. The outcome, of course, is still out of my hands.

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Gauging a virtual book tour

12/19/2015

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For a fiction writer who has just been through a virtual book tour, making an assessment  could very well mean grading the graders.
 
For openers, no matter how carefully you provide a summary of what your novel is all about, you’re subject to a number of filtering systems that seem to fall into three categories.
 
In my own case and for some unknown reason, the initial responses came from those who like to make cursory, snap judgments. For example: “I don’t really go for handyman types who have no business solving crimes. But I really go for vampire stories like the one I posted last week which was really hot and sexy.”  Needless to say, all you can do is hope remarks like these won’t find their way onto Amazon and Goodreads.
 
Next, there are reviewers who get so involved they tend to want to alter the narrative: “I really loved Jed. He reminded me of some guys I knew. But I didn’t like those state policemen who were so mean to him.” In other words, without realizing it, this woman  wanted to change what was driving Jed out of his comfort zone. On one hand, it’s always good to know you’ve created a central character readers can relate to. On the other hand, if you’re governed by how readers might personally react to the given circumstances, your tale will never be truthfully self-generating.     
 
At best are the hosts who can pull back and function as bone fide reviewers, offering meaningful comments for potential readers and a critique a writer can at least ponder over: “I think a good story brings you in, doesn’t let you go, and when it’s over you think about it for days if not more. The author of Murder Run has a way of plying you with bouts of suspicion and conspiracy that keep you coming back until the very end.”
 
Even if these latter two lines were part of a mixed review or even a negative one, they stem from a source that is actually applying standards. Giving you something to consider re: your craft at this point in your creative journey.     
 
To be fair to the tour runner, there’s a takeaway from the entire gamut. You can begin to zero in on your special readership. You can think about the correlation between what you tried to do and how it seems to be coming across. On balance, if nothing else, it’s what happens when you take a chance and throw yourself out there.
 
 
 
 

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navigating a virtual author book tour

10/31/2015

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When you write crime fiction stand-alones, and your publisher is never quite sure how to categorize your work, and a mystery writer acquaintance suggests you might want to opt for “hanging with the literary crowd,” perhaps it’s time to delve a little further. Perhaps, there’s something to gain by tapping into websites run by hosts who, supposedly, would like nothing better than to review new works.  
 
But no matter what the motive, going this route amounts to a search for some correlation between what you set out to do and how it’s generally perceived.  
 
And so, as this foray plays itself out, maybe we can take stock of a virtual tour while the experience is still fresh in my mind.
 
At the outset, there seems to be a big difference in the quality of the sites, the graphic designs and the sense of creative flair. Which also seems to telegraph the quality of the reviews. For the sake of argument, let’s call the less ambitious blog hosts the “hey-it’s-just-me” critics. On this level you’re apt to receive comments like “It was okay but I don’t go for drifter types,” “I couldn’t really get into it but this next one that came along, this vampire romance was really hot and sexy.” And so on.  
 
Needless to say, this kind of feedback isn’t much help. These sites may simply serve as an exchange for easily-sloughed-off new releases.   
 
Interspersed between the just-me reviews are those that provide a little more to go on. Such as, “I really loved Jed. He was quirky and quiet and like some guys I’ve met. And I didn’t appreciate at all how mean the cops were to him.” Here, at least, we have one element to hang the relative success of the tale on—empathy. And though it was extremely short, here’s another: “This is a complex puzzle but Jed is the good guy and I cheered him on.” And here’s a third. “All told, I really liked the interplay between the characters.”
 
Sometimes it gets even better. Now and then, a review like this is apt to turn up: “It starts out at a steady pace and quickly takes us down a rabbit hole of twists and turns. The characters are so real, so human, you might forget they’re fictional.” It’s not so much that the feedback is so positive. It’s the fact that you’re offered some inkling of rhythm, dynamics, surprise, and believability. In coming across a more savvy reviewer, you might even discover elements you didn’t realize were there. Or, as a learning experience, aspects of storytelling where you inadvertently felt short.
 
Granted, your niche may still elude you, along with your place among the literary crowd (whatever that means). However, after you sort through it all, you might just have a better idea of the general impression you’ve made.  
 
        
 

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Crime fiction and two incompatible worlds

9/16/2015

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  As a custom of mutual support, and though we write in different styles, a pair of mystery writers and I exchange published copies of our latest work. I write stand-alones and they write cozies with continuing characters. They know what to expect from their focus groups; I’m never sure and, for whatever reason, throw caution to the wind. All three of us like to have some thoughtful feedback right before the onslaught of reviews. On this go-round however, my two colleagues found they were pressed for time.

  Since we try our best to create plausible characters within the given circumstances, taking a chance on a friendly contact on Facebook who belonged to the same online group seemed like an option. The problem was I had no idea format-driven cozies existed. As a result, there was no way she and I could relate to each others work. There isn’t much you can do when you run into conflicting filtering systems.

  For example, I discovered she likes to label characters, especially in musical terms. Her heroine would refer to a couple as “She was the bow to his violin.” As a result, she  couldn’t understand why, when encountering Sal, my mercurial, unhinged Capo, others didn’t categorize him as demented.  In my experience, in and around the Big Apple, with its constant pulse, hidden games, and the world’s greatest range of unhinged characters (especially those literally under the gun) there’s no time to label anyone, let alone pin them down. You have to keep on your toes and try to keep up. Which was one of the great joys in writing this tale. With each pressure and response, from a range of disparate characters including a Connecticut handyman and fish out of water, the story kept reverberating and appeared to be self-generating.  

But back to the formatted cozy. At the outset, our heroine and teller of the tale relates how, while swimming, she discovered her beloved Gram’s decaying corpse at the bottom of the lake. Instead of becoming traumatized in dire need of sedation, consultation and rest, she’s merely disturbed. It’s as if she’s looked over at the descriptive heading, knows each chapter will be exactly four-and-a-half pages and has to get on with it. In turn, presumably, the reader too is expected to glance at each heading—“dreamy . . . pastoral . . .  strident and up tempo”—and go along. Instead of getting involved or laboring over the realities, you follow the flitting pattern of key and signature changes. I kept wondering what would happen if the narrator was cut free and left on her own, but that simply wasn't how you played the game.  

I soon learned it all comes down to this. At first glance we seem to be operating under the same umbrella and belong to the same tribe. But if you listen closely, you’re apt to realize we all don’t speak the same language.

     

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The writer/editor skirmishes

3/17/2015

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When you’re assigned a new editor who turns out to be a grammarian and refers to the Chicago Manual of Style and other authorities, even though you’ve submitted what you thought was a final polished draft, you may very well be in for it.
 
Through the mechanism of Microsoft Word’s track changes, it’s not just the typos you’ve inadvertently missed that are corrected in red, it’s other things like the “Oxford serial comma” thanks to the Oxford University Press.

And so here I was with all those corrections in red and my only defense to strike back in blue. For instance, my laconic central character can’t wait till he sees Laura again. The editor strikes out “till” and inserts “until” and does it over and over again, thus altering this Indiana farm boy’s clipped thought pattern. Another character (a thug from the mean streets of the Lower East Side) says, “You will do this thing or else.” She inserts a comment demanding to know or else what? Which would throw off the character’s rhythm, not to mention the dangling threat. How silly would it be if he finished the sentence by saying  “. . . there will be dire consequences”?  And so on it goes.
 
Speaking of rhythm, back to the comma war.  It seems there are two schools of thought. One plays it by ear, using the comma to mark a pause. Since I read over my work as if I were telling the tale, a comma at the end of a series of thoughts would feel like taking a breath. On the other hand, a serial comma supposedly is a necessity for clarification—e.g, She listed the projects she wanted done, made the assignments, and rushed out the door.  For me and my sense of rhythm, that comma before the “and” just breaks up the flow.

Of course the Internet, in its hell-bent rush, is full of examples that would be  ridiculous without a serial comma. “The country-and-Western singer was joined onstage by his two ex-wives, Kris Kristofferson and Waylon Jennings.” No argument there. Can we just say  it all depends?

However, after the first pass and hundreds of red markings followed by blue counter-strokes, something had to give. At this rate, the editor and I would be working at cross purposes, would never get along, and the manuscript would have no chance to get back to the publisher in time. (Note the comma before the “and” which in this case seems to fit)

Needless to say, we came to a compromise. All I can hope is that readers will be carried along by the story and won’t find themselves sputtering here and there without quite realizing why.   

 

 

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Those pesky keys to storytelling success

12/8/2014

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By force of habit, when I find myself close to the two-thirds mark, I begin to wonder.  Though I’ve more or less mapped out the journey and it feels right, should I keep going or have I missed the boat somewhere? I can’t show what I’ve done so far to anyone because I’ve learned the hard way the minute I share my work at this stage or even start to describe it, my free-wheeling muse leaves me to my own devices.  

And so I pick up a few of the latest how-to books just in case. The 4-and-5-star ones that claim to deal with such things as the “underlying forces of unforgettable fiction.”

However, though I try to keep an open mind, I always seem to take every sure-fire guideline with a grain of salt and even find myself refuting some of the claims.

In other words, the basic question seems to be, Is this the kind of book I want to write? How does any of this jibe with works I admire and my own voice and integrity? Do I really want to be in the same league of best-selling crime novels just so I can increase my sales?

For example, I met Larry Brooks and attended one of his seminars in Oregon and was curious to see if he had anything new to offer.  His previous expose of the tools of the trade was called Story Engineering. This latest effort is called Story Physics. But here we go again:  based on a high concept, a sure-fire page-turner that’s sure to take off in the market place. His great example of harnessing vital structural forces is Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code.  In other words, if you can steal a provocative premise from a contemporary religious scholar, add a secret religious society that will stop at nothing to keep the secret from getting out, add a one-dimensional hero that keeps running here and there and toss in a female sidekick who thinks nothing of running with him, you can’t miss.

But what kind of structure can hold up given those basic elements?

At the same time, Steven James’ how-to book comes along with his background in theater and tells you readers just won’t buy that sort of thing. They’re bound to question any action on the basis of character. What would he or she really do under these circumstances? Of course, if you’re Dan Brown you can dispense with sticky elements like credible characters and keep the action churning so that you can spend time writing about historical parts of the world you love to explore.

The upshot? What’s left standing after you’ve sorted through all the keys? Perhaps your  original “elevator pitch.” What if so-and-so unwittingly was faced with such-and-such under these circumstances, what worthwhile and intriguing endeavor would this lead to?  Is it really worth the candle? Does it have a built-in set of proliferating complications that will truly pay off after all is said and done?

All told, you can either happily stay the course or shore up some real structural flaws. But you’re probably better off keeping the latest how-to books to a minimum. Otherwise all the nodding and arguing might keep you from doing your real creative work. 

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Coping with the acx audible experience

10/22/2014

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Suppose reviews on Amazon indicate you’ve succeeded as a storyteller. By extension, listeners could also be carried away by the thrust of your tale, colorfulness of your characters, dynamics of your pacing and so forth. In other words, a captivating narration would doubtless enhance your platform.

And so you register for Amazon’s audio program and submit a brief audition passage.

So far so good. If you decide on paying hundreds of dollars to an audio producer to record the book, your chances may be good. That is, if you can hook up with a venue with a promising track record. But you still have no idea how effective the recording will be or if you’ll recoup your investment.  

If you decide on paying out no money at all and go for a royalty share, this is where it gets tricky. Though you’ve indicated the type of voice and presentation you’re looking for, you never know what you’re going to get.

Waiting to see who picks up on your profile and submits an audition may land you a serviceable audition. But from a mystery reader providing you with no credentials, no photo, no way to tell what you might be getting into. In fact, he or she may not even answer your e-mails. Do you really want to get involved with this kind of partner? Or do you want to keep waiting and see what turns up?

Option Three: You listen to short samples based on the criteria you’ve noted and request a submission. Now you’re really in for it. Perhaps one out of seven who aren’t totally booked will comply. Moreover, what you picked up on in the sample was only a tiny and, more often than not, misleading inkling. Those who do submit may have adequate recording equipment but no feeling for the tone of your material or even what it’s all about. You checked off Southern, you get a slow laconic drawl throughout no matter what’s going on in the story. You asked for a storyteller, you get the sound of a park ranger gathering wide-eyed tourists around the ol’ campfire. The one who seemed promising informs you there can’t be anything immoral lurking in some later chapter, he won’t be free to tackle your project for three months, and even then he’s a stickler for perfection and will need an additional four months till he’s satisfied. And this is just for openers. How do you know that down the road the two of you will keep getting along and produce a marketable product vetted by Amazon?   

As the trending cliché goes, “Just saying.”   

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The inner and the outer

8/30/2014

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The Inner and the Outer

 

Not long ago I received two reviews simultaneously. One was from an e-publisher who was disappointed in my crime-and-blues odyssey because it didn’t follow the standard formula of a mystery. The second was from a noted Hollywood novelist and screenwriter who was disappointed because he didn’t want the story to end. He wanted it to go on and on.

Recently, after polishing a new manuscript, I attended a Mystery Writers of America conference in Orlando to try and come to terms with my way of working. Did it jibe with what was currently going on in the field?  

A chat with keynote speaker Laura Lippman before and after she signed a copy of her new crime novel for me plus another chat with her and a few others around the pool gave me an inkling of her method. It entailed numerous flashbacks and back-stories of family life as well as following a retired detective on the trail of a cold case. In this instance, the flashback chapters take you to family dynamics 50, 40 and 26 years ago and deal with the social, individual and economic effect of a missing man’s ploys on his wife and three daughters. The cold case centers on the death of the man’s mistress and possible foul play.

At the same time, I had a few meetings with a senior editor who insisted I follow her three-part submission format to the letter. Moreover, every page, paragraph and sentence of my tale had to move the story forward in order to comply with strict mystery rules and expectations.

Moving on to a panel featuring “new departures,” I discovered what these women writers thought was unique was pretending they were the heroines of a pursuit using their own interests in flying small planes, backpacking and trekking and what-have-you. In other words, their readers want to imagine they too were off on these ventures, encountering provocative men, etc. with no real worries about dire consequences.

Which left me where? My way of working is organic and character/driven. I find myself involved with flawed characters unwittingly caught up in some kind of conundrum—a pursuit that eventually puts them on a collision course.

And so, how do you reconcile your integrity with all the externals, including small presses that may or not be legitimate, about to fold their tents or are no longer accepting submissions? Or up against the effort and expertise it would take to successfully self-publish? Or should you return once again to your old publisher who doesn’t quite know how to categorize your fiction?  

I was once at a small gathering where a prize-winning writer revealed he was a marginal artist. He wrote for the few people who could relate to whatever happened to be haunting him at the time. Well there then now. Maybe that could lead to an answer.

 

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    AUTHOR
    Shelly Frome is a member of Mystery Writers of America, a professor of dramatic arts emeritus at the University of Connecticut, a former professional actor, and has written over twenty-five plays and novels. His latest is the New York caper       Murder Run 

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