Vancouver International Writers Festival

Just finished my final event at the Vancouver International Writers Festival. A brunch with a bunch of great writers, Canadian and Australian. The four days were great but it was so action packed that I haven't had time to post anything. I really don't have time now but will do more when I get back home.

So Shoot Me

Over on the Crime Writers of Canada National Crime Writing Blog we're writing on the theme of how killing people on paper isn't as easy as it seems. Blame it on CSI, but the average reader is much more savvy about things like blood spatter and gunshot residue. That means if you use these technical terms, you better use them properly.

I ran into a problem when I was using - that is, misusing - prescription drugs. Sure, most people won't know that it's hard to kill someone quickly with drug overdoses. Then a nurse will read your ms and tell you it doesn't work that way. Fortunately the nurse is a friend and she happened to have her outdated copies of her drug bibles. 

Some authors get around the technicalities by letting the cops work it out while their amateur sleuth puzzles out the motives. Others, myself included, do a lot of research. If we're lucky and tenacious, we make friends in the right places. I pick the brains of my friends, my friends' friends and people on the street if I over hear an irresistible tidbit of information. My children pretend they don’t know me, then laugh at me later.

Currently I have an almost pathological need to ask police officers questions. You can always tell when a cop walks into a coffee shop where I'm writing. My eyes light up. I take in visual details and look for an opening to glean a bit more knowledge.

So shoot me.

That Special Scene

A famous screenwriter and director is quoted in John Brady’s The Craft of the Screenwriter saying that at heart of any movie is a single scene, a scene that is the reason for the whole story. Maybe I watch too many movies but still…do you have a favourite novel? A book where the climax is that one revealing, crucial scene, a scene that resonates, reverberates with the author’s intent? Scenes without which there is no story, no meaning, no reason to read any further? What are they? What makes them compelling? I think it was Paul Schrader, who wrote Taxi Driver, who said the above but it may have been Robert Towne who wrote Chinatown. Anyway, screenwriters have to reveal character, push the plot forward with very spare dialogue. Not much back-story allowed. As I drive to the finale of my current novel I find myself almost longing for the discipline of screenwriting some days. I must be looking for that extra special scene.

Open with a BANG!

Last week at Sheridan College, I asked my fiction writing students this question:

“How long do you wait when watching a movie or tv show before switching channels?’

Five minutes?  Two minutes?  30 seconds?  The responses varied, but averaged out at one minute.

I told them: “One minute.  That is one page of movie script.  The first page of a novel.  So you are telling me that if the FIRST PAGE of writing doesn’t grab you, you don’t give the book/movie/sitcom a chance?”

Struck dumb, is how they looked.  Yes, audiences are a fickle lot now.  You have to grab them on your first page these days, and better – with your first line!

How to do it?

Start in the middle of something.  Start with action or dialogue.  Do NOT open with the weather, or description of location, or simple back-story.  Start with the meat.

Here’s an example from my novel, Rowena Through the Wall:

“I saw the first one right after class.”

This is a perfect opening line to teach from.  This sentence does many things:

1. It opens with the protagonist.  “I saw” – from this, we know that the book will be in first person – we are introduced to our protagonist.

In fiction, readers expect the first person they encounter, to be the protagonist.  This is the character they expect to become attached to.  Don’t disappoint them.

2. It opens with mystery:  “I saw the first one...”

First one of what?  And – it’s the first, so we know there will be more!  Lots of questions to intrigue the reader.

3. It gives some clue to setting.  “…right after class.” 

In those well-chosen eight words, we have introduced the protagonist, the setting and a mystery.

Other good openers:

“He was a well-dressed burglar, Marge had to admit.” (from “School for Burglars")

Marge is the protagonist; she is watching a burglary in progress.  Talk about opening in the middle of something!  And we have a picture of the burglar in our minds.

“The thing that shocked Emily was how incredibly easy it was to hide a murder.”

(from “Life Without George”)

Emily is the protagonist, and probably a murderer.  Will she get away with it?  Will we want her to get away with it?

All this, from one line.  Open your books with a bang!  Your readers will keep reading.

Melodie's book 'Rowena Through the Wall' hit no. 2 on Amazon.ca bestseller list (fantasy, futuristic) in Aug.

Follow Melodie's comic blog on funnygirlmelodie.blogspot.com

Website: www.melodiecampbell.com

Twitter: @MelodieCampbell

Excited About Bouchercon Conference

I leave Monday morning from my mountain village in California for the Bright Lights and Big City Spirit of St. Louis Bouchercon conference.

I learned to my dismay that the hotel I'd chosen--"three blocks from the conference hotel--is actually a mile and a half away. Curses and damnation on these lying reservation call centers. Oh well. I hope it's the worst thing that even happens to me.

I look forward to seeing Janet Costelloe and Karen Dryden-Blake again. We met earlier this year in Santa Fe and liked each other. I absolutely loved Wayne Arthurson's first book set in Edmonton, and if I meet him there, I'll harangue him for the next one.

These big mystery conferences are exciting. You get to see big name writers you've read and admired. You have conversations with new acquaintances about books dear to your heart and you can finish each other's sentences.

More to follow, I'm sure, once all of us are in St. Louis.

Crime Writers Homicide Investigation School

I'm a real straight-arrow so I never meet the "nose-picking, booger-eatin' morons" Sgt Derek Pacifico talked about in his Homicide Investigation school for Crime Writers last weekend in Covina, California.

For a long time I've been collecting "stupid criminal stories", but Derek topped them all. I just never meet AHs (figure it out) who shoot somebody in the face and think they don't die.

A group of us at the California Crime Writers' Conference in June 2011 heard him give a 4-hour presentation on Interview and Interrogation techniques and were spellbound. We wanted more and he dished it up for us.

Pacifico was funny, serious, thoughtful and thought-provoking. As a law enforcement trainer he's travelled the country teaching the same material to cops. He's worked Homicide Detail as well as all the other facets of police work and now is a Sergeant with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Office.

He liked us because we wanted to learn and didn't sit there, arms crossed, giving off testosterone fumes, and the attitude of "Yeah, dude, go ahead. Teach me something I don't know." He was honest and forth-coming about what really lies behind the crime scene tape.

We liked him because he's just plain likeable. From video clips we saw he's got a line of jokey, rapport-building bullshit with criminals in the interrogation room that got him a lot of confessions. I can see why.

The case studies were particularly interesting because they provided a reconstruction of what first just looked like confusion--and probably was. We learned the tedium of stringing a scene and blood, bugs and graves. It's not exciting the way it is on TV.

He's talking about setting up a conference of some length just for crime writers bringing in experts he teaches and works with. Where? To be decided.

I can't wait.

Check him out at Global Training Institute. http://www.crimewriters.globaltraininginstitute.com/HOMICIDE_SCHOOL.html See also Jude McGee's write-up for Ransom Notes. http://judemcgee.com/2010/05/homicide-or-murder-sgt-pacifico-tells-it-like-it-is/comment-page-1/#comment-37


PS Sorry I can't figure out how to link in this software.

Saved by a quarter hour

It’s been a long hot, humid summer and the crisp fall air can’t come soon enough.

As one of those individuals who suffers in torrid atmospheric conditions – my brain turns to mush – I admit my resolve to finish to my writing project by the autumn has suffered tremendously: from ennui, sluggish holiday recovery, family crises, procrastination and laziness. Should I give it up? It certainly feels like it.

They say familiarity breeds contempt. I’ve been carrying a host of characters around in my head, trying to finish this MS for what seems like eons. Life keeps breaking out around me, throwing up challenges and problems, hassles and calamities. I’m getting a bit tired of these make-believe creatures. They clamor to set about and do things, make pronouncements and go off on tangents. And as prepared as I am to bow to their wishes, I’m supposed to be somewhere else - in real time - in fifteen minutes, or half an hour. And so they wait, impatient, and displaying characteristics I have not yet assigned to them.

What to do? Karen Blake-Hall, our fearless writing group leader, is a firm believer in the fifteen-minutes-a-day regime, especially if you’re on the run. But I write in chunks, I say. What on earth could I achieve in fifteen minutes?

Well, Karen, I’m a convert. You can achieve a lot in fifteen minutes. And the best accomplishment is regaining your momentum. It doesn’t take much. Fifteen stretches to a half hour; a half hour is suddenly an hour. And if tomorrow is busy?

Fifteen minutes will do. You stay in touch with your work. You quiet those characters for a bit and seize control once more.

Mired. Stuck. Blocked. Whatever it is, it seems to just take a nudge – fifteen minutes at a time. At least for now.

Bring on the cool air. My head needs clearing.