If you’ve read enough editions of the weekly New York Times book review section, perused the ads and taken into account the gamut of one-to-five-star reviews of current mainstream fiction on Amazon, it’s apparent that “engrossing page-turners” are either the order of the day or a chief component of stories that seem to make the grade. By the same token, it follows that tales that don’t immediately draw readers in and keep them engrossed are off the mark.
Moreover, there are promotions all over social media like Facebook promising writers “Foolproof ways to keep your readers in suspense,” “. . . establish that all-too vital disturbance and sustain it,” and so forth. It’s as if, given the competition, novelists  have to make certain that the graphics on the cover lure buyers to turn immediately to the first page. If that opening doesn’t do the trick, or once they get the book home and reach for it on their nightstand and settle in, the narrative doesn’t keep them up at night, the jig is up, the game is over.  
As a case in point, Big Sky, best-seller Kate Atkinson’s new venture featuring her popular British detective Jackson Brodie has apparently let her readers down.  Admittedly, I myself was looking forward to Brodie’s latest foray and willing to forgive Atkinson’s usual flaws, but it seems her loyal readers weren’t able to put up with a plot that’s slow to emerge, lack of  mystery or suspense until late in the narrative, plodding pace, Brodie’s pondering over his relationships, ambivalence over his chosen profession, random thoughts , parenthetical stream of consciousness, memories, plus a barrage of characters and loose threads.
In other words, Atkinson seems to have deprived her lead character with any sense of drive and thereby kept her faithful fans from wanting to turn the page. And, as a reader, the same thing has happened to me.  New books pile up on my nightstand because I have no compulsion to go on. I seem to have an abiding need to relate to the leading character’s plight, inner thoughts and, at the same time, be drawn in to the setting and the life.
For what it’s worth, this need has spilled over into my own works in progress. For what it’s worth, here’s a revision I made when I sensed my lead character was running all over the place just for the sake of plot. In this brief passage, I stopped and asked myself, Why couldn’t Josh be driven, take a moment to ponder, and take another moment to engage with the little girl next door as part of the natural flow of circumstances?
But all this equivocating was a complete waste of time. He’d changed his name, written countless profiles for the paper attempting to get lost in other people’s lives and, despite all that, still wound up under the gun.
Taking a time out, he drifted over to the picket fence and tried to get Amanda to hold still for a moment in order to get her to look out for things while he was gone. As usual, however, she was too frisky to engage in what passes for a normal conversation.  She simply had to demonstrate  new variations on her dance solo the choreographer gave her which now included twirls, high kicks and jazz movements she called step-ball-change.
“Isn’t that cool?” she asked, returning to the  fence. “Dance lady added it ‘cause she thought I could handle it and it might be a show stopper. How about that?”
“Pretty nifty, kid. Pretty soon all you’ll need is an agent.”
“You think so? Hey, I know what that is. Mom told me if I keep it up, she might take me to auditions for that musical Annie in Asheville. Now wouldn’t that be something?”
“Sure would,” said Josh, realizing for the umpteenth time the amazing difference between himself and Amanda when he was the same age. “Listen, I’m going to be out of town for the next couple of weeks and I’d like to hire you to keep an eye out. Make sure of things like checking for poison oak crawling up the trellis by the back porch taking over the morning glory. There are sprays and stuff in the tool shed.”
“That’s what that weird cousin said. I mean about looking high and low for you. So’s you could help out ‘cause something came up back north and you’re needed.”
“That’s right,” said Josh as the anxiety kicked in again. “Something pressing came up.” He tried to keep his response easygoing, brushing off anything worrisome. As if this was just a chat between a harmless nice-guy with a perky little girl next door. A sweet bit of Americana, nestled in a quiet idyllic neighborhood, embraced by the Blue Ridge and the rosy hue of twilight afterglow.  

​Back in the day, Fritz Perls, the noted Gestalt therapist, proclaimed that none of us were put on this earth to live up to other people’s expectations. It was vital in terms of self-realization to be true to yourself and your genuine values and intentions.
All that is well and good unless you’re a writer of crime fiction (and any other genre for that matter) and have to contend with considerations like establishing a platform and a readership, a pursuit some have likened to identifying and appealing to a special, designated tribe. And that, of course, has little to do with the process of creation and, say for the sake of argument, bringing a compelling mystery to life.
In short, when you send a published work out there, even after you polished it and worked out all the kinks and holes in tandem with your editor’s insights and suggestions, 5 star and 1 and 2 star reviews may likely begin to appear under “books” in places like Amazon.
For example, after you’ve done your level best to insure that Miranda, your unwitting but intrepid amateur sleuth is believable, vulnerable, and comprised of many of the inconsistencies that make us all human, some readers will complain that she’s too scatterbrained. In this particular case, a few housewives from the Midwest were disappointed that this lead character didn’t resemble “the tough feisty gal” traits that Sue Grafton’s detective exhibits. In essence, you’ve left mystery buffs down and haven’t lived up to what they had every right to expect.
On the other hand, some readers award your efforts with a glowing 5 star because, at long last, you’ve provided them with a flawed character they can relate to. Other readers key primarily on plot and twists and surprises, and still others focus on a compelling sense of place and grade you on how closely your work adheres to the tenets of noted British writer P.D. James.
Just for fun, I recently presented a successful New York crime writer with this particular dilemma and case in point. She wrote back that as long as I was garnering this range of reviews everything was fine. “If you’re getting all 4 and 5 star reviews, it’s time to worry. Either all your reviews are coming from friends and relatives or you’ve sold out and are writing formulaic stuff and what’s the point in that?”   

This handbook promises a set of “innovative tools for perfecting fiction, captivating readers, and achieving success.”  What it actually offers are 250 pages of checklists based on the premise that you have to perfect and master seven skills, including concept, character, structure, scene work, dialogue, tone and theme, before setting out to conquer this special world. Which is like saying t before embarking on some beckoning Appalachian Trail, you first have to earn a certain number of scouting merit badges.
In rebuttal, the first thing that comes to mind is Anne Lamott’s iconic book Bird by Bird. At the outset, she argues that “perfectionism kills creativity.” She urges all aspiring writers of fiction to follow their heart, intrepidly out on their journey, keep forging ahead and write a lousy first draft with no thought given to the final result. By the same token, F. Scott Fitzgerald famously advised a young aspirant that it takes “the soul of a peasant” to plow ahead no matter what conditions you encounter. Before embarking, you could of course ask yourself if the trip was potentially going to be worth the candle—why here, why now and so what? All and all, however, it’s hard to imagine any creative person wanting to perfect some checklist of skills beforehand, sustained by a vague promise of success (whatever that means) plus an even more vague guaranty that this effort in the long run will “captivate readers.”
Instead, you might be far better off to take into account what inspired and sustained the making of one of your favorite books. Take Harper Lee’s beloved To Kill a Mockingbird. The setting (which isn’t even on Matt Bird’s checklist), namely that of Depression era 1930’s in Lee’s tiny home town Alabama, encompassing all that conjured up—bouts of racism, making due as a child with  games like rolling around in a worn automobile tire, spending hours at the courthouse watching her lawyer father plying his trade, etc—continued to haunt her. And even so, the initial results of her “lousy first draft” was a series of vignettes. Still and all, underneath it all was the rich drive, authenticity and compelling memories which prompted an editor to guide her over the course of a year in New York to turn these vignettes and unique voice into a memorable narrative.
Needless to say, the examples of beginning with an enduring quest are too numerous to recount. As for Matt Bird’s itemized format, it couldn’t hurt to skim through the pages, note which ones may apply during moments when the story fails to come alive, try them out and see whether or not it makes a marked difference. Then again, you might be far better off taking a page from Harper Lee, and seeking out insightful editorial advice.          

Though it’s never been spelled out, my editor at the publishing house and I have a tacit understanding that there’s something filmic at play in good crime fiction. Along with the basic factors, it’s as if there’s also an imaginary cameraman at work looking for something provocative to shoot--zooming in, tracking, taking in the entire scene with a wide angle lens, etc.
In fact, often when I pull back as a narrator, I’m prompted to bring this moment to life instead and pick up on the action.  
For example, in the latest draft of a work in progress, there was a point where I summed up a long-lost cousin’s predicament by simply stating that Miranda (the unwitting sleuth) underscored the situation one last time and moved on.   
The editor felt I should let the moment play out which led to this revision:      
“Look,” Miranda finally said, “I hate to break it to you, kiddo, but the facts are the facts. Cindy at the motel swore it was a guy on a motorcycle who snuck into your room at the crack of dawn. Then tossed your cat into an airport rental where he crawled up by the rear window as the car took off. The upshot is, right-wing pundit Russ Mathews damn well was the driver. He’d obviously flown all the way down from New York to keep you under wraps one way or another.”
As Skip sat there in the passenger seat in stunned silence, she couldn’t help but notice a white compact pulling in a few rows back of the entrance to the ER. It could very well have been that selfsame Toyota Corolla airport rental.
In terms of these frequent prods, the only cinematic justification my editor ever gave was an occasional “given your background” (theater and film), “your genre” and/or “your style” (highly visual and self-generating).
All told, what’s gratifying about this approach is the feedback I’ve generally received from readers. Take a response from Moon Games, my latest foray into the cozy genre. A lady mystery buff from the heartland was taken by “so much going on.” She felt she had to keep alert, like a moviegoer who didn’t want to slip out to the concession stand and miss something. Upon reaching the twisty climax, she declared she was happy she stuck with all the scenes.
Like everything else, seeing the unfolding tale from a movie perspective is no guarantee of success.  However, employing it as part of your writing arsenal surely helps  to keep the reader engrossed. 

Imaginative Dragonfly Reads   April 2019
I love a good mystery and any time I can get my hands on a very good one I get excited. Moon Games was no different. From the characters to the heart of the story, Frome has done a wonderful job creating such a beautiful mysterious piece of literature.
I was confused some, but I could tell it wasn't myself alone. The characters confusion jumped out and grabbed me. A wonderful read filled with such gripping description.
​
Excerpt from Moon Games
The wind picked up yet again, joined by spatters of cold rain and the rustle of leaves from the encircling shrub. 
All at once, the lantern flicked off, a scream cut through the wind and spatters. The cries became muffled, replaced by the grunts of a hulking figure clambering up the knoll, coming directly toward him with something writhing and flailing over its back.
For one interminable moment, he caught sight of her eyes, frozen, terrified, beseeching him.
Reflexively, despite every decent intention deep in his bones, Harry dropped the Maglite, turned and ran down the slope, tripping and stumbling, falling to his knees, righting himself, smacking into a brush that scraped his cheek. Rushing headlong now, smacking into more brush and banging his elbow, he kept it up, twisted his ankle but hobbled forward fast as he could until he reached his station wagon. Squirming behind the wheel, he fumbled for his keys, dropped them on the mat, groped around, snatched them up, grinded the ignition, set both front and back wipers going and shot forward hitting the trunk of a tree. He backed up into the hedgerow, turned sharply, not daring to flip on the headlights, scraped another tree and slid onto the narrow lane.
He switched on the low beams so he could see where he was going in the drizzle and fog and began making his way down. Dull headlight beams flashed behind his rear window and faded.
With his mind racing and the wipers thwacking away as the rain lashed across the windshield, he careened down the zig-zagging lane and thought of the car that was wedged under the branches parked on a downward angle and the hulking figure carrying his prey over his shoulder shambling toward it. And her eyes, those beseeching eyes.  

As a college teacher specializing in novel writing, Dufresne has filled this book with exercises and passages relating his own personal experiences.  He does so as if making the process akin to delving into lessons learned, unfinished business and material at hand or just out of reach. As if reassuring any and all aspiring writers that it’s just a matter of tapping one’s own life while mining for material and then keeping at it and polishing the results.
In effect, Dufresne is just a guy and look what he went through to get to this point. You’ve probably had similar doubts, relationships and/or struggles. If not, turn to one of the exercises like coopting family stories or go back and recall your first love, etc.
However, it’s a sure bet that none of this is going to sustain you and give you that abiding soul of a peasant Fitzgerald spoke of. None of this will carry you through the seasons until the seeding, tilling and plowing in all kinds of weather comes to something you can truly harvest. Moreover, examine one of Dufresne’s novels and it becomes obvious that his personalized dilemmas may or  may not be generally  relatable, let alone his idiosyncratic and somewhat meandering style.
Even in terms of his reliance on memory, pick up a copy of Pat Conroy’s notable Prince of Tides and it’s highly doubtful that anyone else could have employed that flowery style while, at the same time, intensifying personal recollections with imaginary, horrific, southern- gothic traumas—events that psychologically needed to come to light in order for his tidewater protagonist to go on.  
On the positive side however, if you’re more or less just starting out and able to skim through these chapters, you can pick up little gems like “even after you’ve written a second or third draft, you may just be beginning. You’ve still got endless problems to deal with like inconsistent characters and a sputtering through-line for a plot that has to be dealt with.”  
In other words, if you’re sufficiently haunted to begin with and have to work through this dynamic come what may, you might be able to pick up pointers here and there to see you through.  

Though it’s never been spelled out, my editor at the publishing house and I have a tacit understanding that there’s something filmic at play in good crime fiction. Along with the basic factors, it’s as if there’s also an imaginary cameraman at work looking for something provocative to shoot--zooming in, tracking, taking in the entire scene with a wide angle lens, etc.

In fact, often when I pull back as a narrator, I’m prompted to bring this moment to life instead and pick up on the action.  

For example, in the latest draft of a work in progress, there was a point where I summed up a long-lost cousin’s predicament by simply stating that Miranda (the unwitting sleuth) underscored the situation one last time and moved on.
  
The editor felt I should let the moment play out which led to this revision:
     
“Look,” Miranda finally said, “I hate to break it to you, kiddo, but the facts are the facts. Cindy at the motel swore it was a guy on a motorcycle who snuck into your room at the crack of dawn. Then tossed your cat into an airport rental where he crawled up by the rear window as the car took off. The upshot is, right-wing pundit Russ Mathews damn well was the driver. He’d obviously flown all the way down from New York to keep you under wraps one way or another.”
As Skip sat there in the passenger seat in stunned silence, she couldn’t help but notice a white compact pulling in a few rows back of the entrance to the ER. It could very well have been that selfsame Toyota Corolla airport rental.

In terms of these frequent prods, the only cinematic justification my editor ever gave was an occasional “given your background” (theater and film), “your genre” and/or “your style” (highly visual and self-generating).

All told, what’s gratifying about this approach is the feedback I’ve generally received from readers. Take a response from Moon Games, my latest foray into the cozy genre. A lady mystery buff from the heartland was taken by “so much going on.” She felt she had to keep alert, like a moviegoer who didn’t want to slip out to the concession stand and miss something. Upon reaching the twisty climax, she declared she was happy she stuck with all the scenes.

Like everything else, seeing the unfolding tale from a movie perspective is no guarantee of success.  However, employing it as part of your writing arsenal surely helps  to keep the reader engrossed.
 

​Part memoir, part reflection on the writing life--all from King’s personal experience and point of view. In short, this book will not provide an aspiring novelist with a how-to manual in terms of structure, plotting, dialogue or anything else in the way of producing a marketable work. But it does reveal the writing life, the ups and downs, and what one established creator of best-sellers  goes through.  
Put another way, it serves to double-back on any fiction writer’s chosen venture.
For instance, while writing a tale about a troubled teenager named Carrie, he found that her plight didn’t move him emotionally. His lead character just seemed to be a ready-made victim. He also didn’t feel at home with her surroundings and an all-girl supporting cast.  For King, writing is always best when it’s intimate, when he’s truly personally involved.
On the other hand, he began to realize that his first impression may have been as erroneous as the reader’s.  And stopping because the work doesn’t seem to be going well, because the going is hard, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on even if you don’t feel like it. And sometimes you’re actually doing good work even though, at the moment, the project seems hopeless
In a later passage, while working on yet another fright tale called The Shining, he finally realized on a much deeper level his stories were actually a scream for help, a way to confront his demons as an alcoholic from perhaps a safer remove while embarked on a dangerous game all the same.  
If nothing else, as a byproduct, King’s book serves to prod the reader into considering why one writes fiction, is drawn to certain dramatic circumstances, and has to go on no matter what.   

Needless to say, there are notable creative writers who don’t employ tried-and-true formulas or aren’t even aware of any recipes at all. Something begins percolating seemingly out of the blue, or at least emanating from their subconscious, telling them something is up and needs to be explored.

The following are three examples taken from writers I’ve talked with. I’ve left out their names and titles of the finished works to bypass any comparisons or degrees of success in terms of the final product or anything aside from those elusive beginning, promising moments.

There’s a spunky lady who also doubles as a kind of gatekeeper or acquisitions editor who relies on a visual springboard. For example, one day she had this image of a cowboy, plopped down on an open vintage convertible with running boards, stripped of its tires, propped up on cement blocks with the Texas hill country in the background. The cowboy’s hat shielded him from the sun but he appeared to be gazing directly at someone or something that had caught his fancy. Then and there our spunky writer began to wonder who he was, what he was up to and, in short, what in the world was going on.

It wasn’t the opening gambit, our writer had no idea of a story structure. She just knew there was irrepressible energy brewing that had to be worked out.

A New Yorker and a seasoned writer who had moved to the Litchfield Hills of Connecticut often keyed on relationships, especially those that had gone wrong. In those terms, he always writes to discover things that, all the while, he didn’t know that he knew. In one personal instance, after all these years he had never gotten over the fact that his father had continually disparaged his foray into singing and show business instead of pursuing something more manly like sports or gone into business. And so, at a certain point, this seasoned writer felt compelled to go back in time and create a scene under some circumstance or other whereby a son finally has it out with his disparaging father. Again, no thought was given to how to arrive at this climactic scene, only that it was high time to creatively work through this conundrum.  

Lastly, a highly sensitive lady scribe often had troubling moments when she was aware that in someone’s life this was patently not going to be just another day. That all the plans and dreams and life formulas hadn’t at all panned out for, say, a single or divorced or sickly woman approaching middle age who might not be able to go on. Perhaps she was still living with her mother. Perhaps she might not be able to get through the night. What in the world will happen to her?
​
In short, the catalyst could be anything that taps into each writer’s unique sensibility and lingers until she or he simply can’t slough it off and has to go to work, regardless of whether or not there may be an market for the finished product.   

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.