History Spices up Mystery in Inspector Rebus' Pub

The cold, dark world of Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh, fog, misted windows, bodies in fireplaces or government offices: How unlike the pretty city built on a hill that we tourists see.

Yet Rankin’s detective, Inspector John Rebus, compels us to follow him down the labyrinthine ways of evil doers. He is so popular that visitors can now take ‘Rebus Tours’, the “history and mystery” of the real locations of Rebus cases as well as the more typical Holy Rood Palace and Edinburgh Castle. The tours start from The Royal Oak, one of Rebus’ pubs, on Saturdays.

The night we were in Edinburgh, a cool Monday in June, the minuscule Royal Oak – tiny bar plus a half dozen battered tables, hosted a traditional jam session with musicians wandering in and out as the mood or the tip jar took them. Some of the onlookers were European tourists looking for Rebus. Doesn’t Rebus mostly drink at the Oxford Bar in the city’s New Town? Yes. But he also had a confrontation with his nemesis Big Ger Cafferty at the Oak. One evening Rebus stops there for a nightcap, and is shocked to find Cafferty has been released from prison and is celebrating with a song.

The story of the pub and the singing thug illustrates the marriage of sentiment and hard-nosed thuggery in Rankin’s novels where Edinburgh’s dark and historic Castle broods over the city and the city feels like a character itself. The Scots have fought each other, the Vikings and the English from this place for centuries and the Castle with its prisons, working garrison, tales of siege, poison and death figures hugely in the Scottish narrative. Since they abolished their own Parliament over three hundred years ago to live under Westminster, only regaining it in 1999, the Scots have felt a sense of wrong. That abiding uneasiness, the sense of wrongs unrighted, pervades Rebus’ adventures in the city of the new Scottish parliament.

Confessions from a Literary Slut

I didn’t coin that phrase, nor does it necessarily point to smutty writing in my novels (although, as they say, some like it hot, and Rowena Through the Wall would probably score a humidex rating.)

No, an early mentor, a guy, once called me a Literary Slut, when referring to my tendency to write in several genres – and sometimes several genres at once.  Which brings me once more to novel classification, and those naughty books that don't fit a specific genre.

Rowena Through the Wall is such a novel.  I call it comic alternate world fantasy.  The romance market calls it paranormal romance.  Under fantasy, it would be sword and sorcery.  The mainstream market considers it time-travel.   In our mystery world, we would label it romantic suspense (of the original definition – think Daphne DuMaurier and Mary Stewart.)  Midwest Book Review called it “a hot, hilarious romantic fantasy.”  Hard to argue with that!

Why the difficulty in finding classification?  Well, like many authors, I didn’t write for a specific ready-made audience.  Instead, I set out to write a rollicking adventure, sexy, dangerous and full of humour.  I wrote it for me, and other readers like me, who want adventure novels.  Like many females, I find big ‘R’ romance not my thing; that is, I don’t want predictable endings.

I do, however, want my pleasure-reading spiced up with the guy-gal thing.  The trick is, to work in some passion while writing a plot-heavy story.  The romance isn’t the plot (as it must be in a big R romance novel) but it may well be an essential ingredient to motivate the players to action.

The gratifying thing is that Rowena has garnered a male audience as well.  One male former editor of a fantasy magazine said the following in a review: “Rowena is a wild ride of fantasy, and male readers will wish she had walked through the wall to them.”  When questioned further, he said:  “It’s fantasy and it’s hot.  It’s got brutal sword fighting.  Guys die.  What’s not to like?”

So it could be that men and women read the same novels for different things.  Or maybe – as I claim – we just all need escape.  And frankly, ‘reality TV’ doesn’t do it for many of us.  Who the heck needs more reality?

So regardless of what you want to call it, bring on the fantasy, I say!  Make my suspense sizzle.

Words not unexpected from a Literary Slut.

Melodie Campbell’s comic novel Rowena Through the Wall (Imajin Books) is available at Amazon.com and Smashwords.

 http://www.amazon.com/Rowena-Through-the-Wall-ebook/dp/B00557Z2QU

Follow Melodie at

http://funnygirlmelodie.blogspot.com/2011_06_01_archive.html

View trailer and read opening scene at

http://www.melodiecampbell.com/

Favourite book and first line

Karen, this is s double comment: Favourite first line from Pride and Prejudice: Don't know how often I've quoted it and read it and its also one of my favourite books for re-reading. Also Mansfield Park, Sense and Sensibility. I find as I read them at different times in my life I get different appreciations from them. A second fave, actually two that influenced me greatly as a kid: Gone With The Wind for its tale of a woman's adventurous life and Officer Factory by H. H. Kirst.

I'm an entrepreneur?

I'm an entrepreneur. I've always been one, so you'd think that self-promotion would be easy for me but it isn't. Being an introvert, I don't like the spotlight. Writing about myself and my work is next to impossible for me so when Janet gave us the challenge of creating a Widipedia page my first thought was 'I'm not that interesting a person'.

I decided to try and figure out why anyone would be interested in looking me up and this is what I discovered.

I write Romantic Suspense stories. I'm a member of Romance Writers of America, Toronto Romance Writers, Sisters in Crime, Toronto Sisters in Crime. I'm a member of the Bloody Words executive or as we call ourselves, the Bloody Gang.

I've started several writing groups so authors can help other authors improve their craft. I've written reviews for authors because I loved their stores. I started this blog so authors can promote themselves and their friends.

All in all I'm just a writer who loves great stories. So what is the one book you've read that you read over and over  again?

The tricky first line....

Between Heather's post on first chapters and Janet's challenge regarding gripping first lines, I've been noticing first lines recently.

I was surprised to see that many of my favorite books begin with a first line that focuses on character, relationships, or theme, rather than on action.

Many start by setting up the voice of the narrator. Most of the Nero Wolfe books do this, beginning with Archie's voice, often relating something about the dynamics of the household or about his relationship with Wolfe. (For instance in Fer-de-lance Archie gripes about how is is often the one being sent on errands, in Prisoner's Base he relates his latest ploy to aggravate Wolfe into action, in The Rubber Band we see him hassling Wolfe...) One of the most enjoyable elements in Stout's books is the relationship between Wolfe and Archie, and in one way or another many of the books start with a focus on that relationship.

Another example of starting with the narrator's voice: Amelia Peabody in The Mummy Case:
"I never meant to marry. In my opinion, a woman born in the last half of the nineteenth century of the Christian era suffered from enough disadvantages without willfully embracing another."

Can't you just hear her?

That tricky first chapter

It’s like getting the lede right on a news story: It has to be succinct, draw in the reader, compel us to read the rest of the piece, give us a taste of what is to come without giving it all away. It’s the point from which all else unfolds. It holds the glimmer of intrigue that gets us thinking, keeps our eyes moving over the copy.

It can be the trickiest part of the story; it used to be that reporters were dunned by a pesky copy desk to ‘make it sing,’ ‘make it tighter,’ ‘make it shorter,’ and so on. It could drive a reporter/copy editor nuts.

Writing that first chapter – the one you might be sending to an agent – is just as bad. There’s a proliferation of writing/publishing courses out there and the few I’ve sampled hammer it home: The first chapter has to sell your story; it has to have a punch; it has to be well-written. One instructor mimed an agent shuffling through manuscripts, reading the first sentence or two and throwing the first chapter on the slush pile. Frightening. Is that how they do it? Five seconds with a first chapter and it’s decided?

Then you’d better get it right. And therein lies the problem. What’s right if your work has never been accepted? What will make that five seconds a winner? How can you possibly know? You can’t. You can only hope that the writing – and rewriting – gets your first chapter to a tight, manageable, alluring and exciting read. You have to hope that the point of the story is so tightly wound from the starting point that the rest of the tale unwinds quickly and beautifully – like a fast ball hit by Jays’ slugger Jose Bautista.

There is no magic solution to the first chapter: It’s a shot in the dark. I suppose ‘believe in yourself’ is as good a mantra as any. Show it to friends you trust. Take lots of advice. Don’t be wounded by criticism. Try to be subjective. Stand back and look at your work. And rewrite. Then rewrite it again.

A Wikipedia Entry for Mar Preston

It seems very presumptuous to enter myself in Wikipedia but I'm answering the challenge that was posed. Please comment on my entry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:marpreston#External_Links

I'm curious to see how others answer.


Good wishes all,

Mar