Back to Writing, Thinking about Writing, and Querying

Notes from a mini-workshop by agent/writer Donald Maass at the 2010 Edgar's symposium in NYC last week.  Sponsored by Mystery Writers of America. 
What are  breakout mystery novelists doing differently?

 Following the “rules” is not that important.  Look outside the form for more BIG characters. 

 Find a mythic milieu and create multiple points of view.  Make your antagonist three dimensional.  The story should have a high purpose and employ all literary devices. 

 Think about your main characters.  At what stage of life are they?  What is their main problem?  How does the problem get worse?  Create more complications:  acute, painful, urgent.  Keep twisting your plot. Do not make it easy for your protagonist.  Make it very, very hard.  Make the worst happen.  The main character should experience defeat.

 Create extra plot layers with subplots, and weave them into the story.  Bombard the protagonist with worse and more difficult to solve problems.

 Your story contains unique setting.  Set some of the extra plot layers in one of your settings.     Cross story lines with your sub-plots.  Make several key events to the story occur in the same place, the “magical place.”  

 Maass believes in multiple points of view.  Maybe three.  Make one of them a young person’s.  Give your antagonist plenty of page time. 

 Opening up your story gives it even bigger potential.  Make sure that your character’s experiences mirror your readers’ universal experiences.  Put one prominent object that is present in the beginning of the story in its end.  Keep mentioning this object.  Create symbols. Think about the world of your story.  It should be special. 

 

I read Havana Lunar, because the author was an Edgar's  panelist and I liked what he said about dialogue.  This is a great book.   

 

Writing the Breakout Mystery Novel

Writing the Breakout Mystery – Agent/Writer Donald Maass at the 2010 Edgar
Week Symposium, April 28th, New York City.

Here are my notes about this one hour workshop. I definitely got some new ideas for another POV (point of view) and some other worthwhile tips. Now, to incorporate them into the manuscript.

Maass began by asking:

What are breakout mystery novelists doing differently?

Following the “rules” is not that important. Look outside the form for more BIG characters.

Find a mythic milieu and create multiple points of view. Make your antagonist three dimensional. The story should have a high purpose and employ all literary devices.

Think about your main characters. At what stage of life are they? What is their main problem? How does the problem get worse? Create more complications: acute, painful, urgent. Keep twisting your plot. Do not make it easy for your protagonist. Make it very, very hard. Make the worst happen. The main character should experience defeat.

Create extra plot layers with subplots, and weave them into the story. Bombard the protagonist with worse and more difficult to solve problems.

Your story contains unique setting. Set some of the extra plot layers in one of your settings. Cross story lines with your sub-plots. Make several key events to the story occur in the same place, the “magical place.”

Maass believes in multiple points of view. Maybe three. Make one of them a young person’s. Give your antagonist plenty of page time.

Opening up your story gives it even bigger potential. Make sure that your character’s experiences mirror your readers’ universal experiences. Put one prominent object that is present in the beginning of the story in its end. Keep mentioning this object. Create symbols.

Think about the world of your story. It should be special.

During a panel discussion, I heard about the nominated novel (paperback original) Havana Lunar, by Robert Arellano.  Bought it and read it.  (rather short).  His novel actually obeyed many of Maass's suggestions, and I loved the setting of  1992 Havana.  Arellano really takes us there, makes us hungry, too, with caffeine headaches (why does no one write of those?)  no aspirin, no gasoline, all the deprivations, but life goes on, and the "heroine" makes banana bread out of stale flour and some hard sugar.  The plot had some good twists and turns and didn't get bogged down in minutiae of police procedure. Only one POV, and for this short book, that was enough.  But we saw the protag as a young boy.  The world of this story was soooo believable.  Ole.    The Spanglish was challenging, but Arellano did a great job of translating without translating.  And some vocabulary "Jineta" we could figure out with no translation.

Onward to garden on this stellar weather weekend.  When I went out this morning, a sweet little field mouse was dying on the flagstones.  So sad.  No earthly idea why.  Now I must perform a little burial service.  Our cat Annie  is also not well.  Things die in spring, and that seems to contradict everything.  Or not.

Onward,

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Cross Pollination of Best Seller Lists

Again this week, Atonement and Ken Follett's book are both on the Trade paperback and the Mass-Market paperback lists. Why haven't I seen this mentioned?

I finished Donald Maass' "Breakout Novel" book, which has so much great advice in it, and I even discovered what kind of book I am going to write. How cool is that?

The last cookie is gone, the decorations are as far as boxes on the living room floor, as are the extra blankets which need to return to the cedar closet. This Christmas business sure is a lot of work, and I am wondering how it did it when I worked 50 hours a week. There was always the suspense of would everything actually get done on time, which is the kind of suspense one can do without. Definitely.

We had fed the Scottish Highland Cattle bags and bags of fruit and vegetable scraps lately. The newest baby comes charging up to the fence with her (his?) mom, Maggie, just like she knows what's going on. Maggie is very relaxed and the calf seems quite independent by now. The weather has warmed up again.

Our guests had a gruelling day yesterday, with a 3 hour delay in Baltimore, and an arrival in Reno in a snowstorm, plus a trip to Gerlach through flooded Fernley. Who takes a trip can tell a tale, and usually it's not about wonderful food and great accommodations, althought this is possible once in a while.

How can it be that the delete key is no longer working? Always and forever more ways than one to skin a cat. Onward, although probably not upward.

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Home Alone

The last of the company left this morning, much to the relief of the cats. Thisbe has been under the bed all week, and Annie has been stressed out from all the extra love and petting. Both animals appeared to know that the guests were gone. How is this possible? We've been in and out for days. Perhaps it was the early awakening this a.m. or the sight of the suitcases. Anyhow, they knew. I know. I know. Yesterday was cat blog day but I had other topics to discuss.

Now to start on all the tasks for the new year. Y membership, new wireless modem installed. Lots of paperwork and filing and ah yes, the laundry.

We have a large snow fort in the front yard and also a snow woman with the longest darkest eyelashes. Great consternation that we had no carrot for a nose. Alas, we had eaten them all, but a piece of wood was procured and painted. It's entertaining to watch a young, creative mind at work.

I'm still plugging away at Donald Maass' book, and thinking (or trying to think) of ways to up the ante and make a strong compelling character. This new novel will be much more difficult than the last four. I was kind of in the groove for writing my crime fiction series.

So, onward but possibly not upward, and maybe it only seems like onward. By the end of the day I'll have a clean desk, which as we used to say, is the sign of a sick mind.

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