For a Reader

My Favorite Mystery Novel of the Second Half of the 20th Century

When I read mysteries, I read as an author as well as for enjoyment. I am always trying to learn how the author created the atmosphere or the red herring or the golden coin in the story. In that way, I am learning the art of mystery writing. 
I have read and therefore been taught by many of the best mystery writers of the English language and that includes those translated into English. (If I did not have a lead tongue, and a mind that refuses to learn another language, I might have been tempted to read some of these famous mysteries in their native tongue.)
I learned reading from Michael Connelly, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Agatha Christie, Lawrence Block, Lee Childs, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sue Grafton, J. D. Robb, James Lee Burke, Janet Evanovich, and many others that I cannot remember at the moment.
Pacing, distraction, logic, presentation, and characterization can be learned from reading others's writings. Flaws and mistakes are present even in the works of the greatest authors, and an alert reader can learn from others missteps.   
But only one manuscript affected me to the point that I remember it as the best mystery novel written after 1950. 
That book is The Poet by Michael Connelly. 
Although some less than kind reviewer stated the characterizations were not deep, I believe that reviewer to be too picky.  
If this manuscript were an old house with many rooms, the same reviewer would say it was too dusty to appreciate. If you walk through this old house, you would note doors you never saw or noticed from a distance. If you opened these doors, they reveal facts and views that you could not have suspected. After passing through the door, you realize the views could be anticipated prior to venturing in the room. They were not because the architecture hid the clues in the woodwork and the furniture. That made them difficult to see, but the facts were there. While you focused on walking, you missed all that was around you.    
Connelly does not surprise you with twists of logic once or twice in The Poet, he flaunts and parades twists, as if his writing were a Twizzlers factory. He even ends the book in this manner.
And that leads to The Narrows, a later novel involving many of the same characters, some of whom were presumed dead.  
He also makes the reader sense all the fear of his characters from the safety of our chair. Combining these two accomplishments so flawlessly makes this a masterpiece of a novel. It did win an Anthony and the Dilys award in 1997.
I believe that people read mysteries not just to solve the puzzle. But  in The Poet, the puzzle is well conceived and the logic is tight. That helps the reader suspend his disbelief. But the level of evil encountered in this book, is so high, that one reviewer called the villain a comic book evil. However, that reviewer forgot that just prior to the book, it was discovered that the Internet was being used by pedophiles to accomplish their ends. The book transports a mutated reality onto the page. No comic book was ever this evil. No hero was ever this real to the reader. 
Readers want to realistically but safely experience true danger and true evil.  Thankfully few of us will meet or experience a Hannibal Lecter in our lifetime, or a pedophile like Eidolon, but through the pages of a novel, we can live with these criminal for a short time and quite intimately and still live to tell about it.
In The Poet, Michael Connelly let us live with a murderer who is also a member of a ring of predators and just when you think it is over, it is still on. Wow.  

What is your favorite mystery novel and why?

-- L. Preschel author of the Sam-Cath mysteries. 

For the authors - Sol Stein's Writer's Ten Commandments

I am a self-taught writer. And as in other fields of endeavor, a writer who has himself for a teacher has a fool for a student. That being as it may; I have read a lot, both for recreation and to learn my craft. Those writers who took the time to explain our craft in a manner I could understand are my teachers, although most of them have never met me personally.

Authors kind enough to give their time to explain how they go about their craft, are numerous. The number that truly help neophytes writers in need of learning – mea culpa – are less in number. In this case, most of those who can’t do and plenty of those that can do, just can’t teach. Making up a story is a completely different art from putting facts on the page and delineating procedures that allow an author to communicate well to his audience.  

It is rare that you find someone who is good at both. Stephen King comes to mind. 

That is where one of my teachers, Sol Stein, excels. I have never met him, but I have read his manuscript: Stein on Writing – A master editor of some of the most successful writers of our century shares his craft techniques and strategies. It is without doubt one of the best teaching sources for beginning to intermediate authors. The book was published by St. Martin, Griffin in 1995. It is worth looking for this manuscript. I have found it still advertised online. If this manuscript were to go out of print that would truly be a shame. It is instructional and a reference source. 

The jacket cover presents an accurate descriptive quote from Sol Stein concerning his book. “Sol Stein, renowned editor, author, and instructor, explains, This is not a book of theory. It is a book of usable solutions – how to fix writing that is flawed, how to improve writing that is good, how to create interesting writing in the first place.”

So much for my professor’s credentials, even though I have not fully delineated all his achievement in the creative arts. Let’s get to the meat of this post. From Stein on Writing (p.302), I present:

The Ten Commandments for Writers.

1. Thou Shalt not sprinkle characters into a preconceived plot lest thou produce hackwork. In the beginning was the character, then the word, and from the character’s words is brought forth action.

2. Thou shalt imbue thy heroes with faults and they villains with charm, for it is the faults of the hero that bring forth his life, just as the charm of the villain is the honey with which he lures the innocent.

3. Thy characters shall steal, kill, dishonor their parents, bear false witness, and covet their neighbor’s house, wife, manservant, maidservant, ox, and ass, for reader’s crave such actions and yawn when thy characters are meek, innocent, forgiving, and peaceable.

4. Thou shalt not saw the air with abstractions, for readers, like lovers, are attracted by particularity.

5. Thou Shalt not mutter, whisper, blurt, bellow, or scream. For it is the words and not the characterization of the words must carry their decibels.

6. Thou shalt infect thy reader with anxiety, stress, and tension, for those conditions that he deplores in life he relishes in fiction.

7. Thy language shall be precise, clear, and bear the wings of angels, for anything less is the province of businessmen and academics and not of writers.

8. Thou shalt have no rest on the Sabbath, for they characters shall live in thy mind and memory now and forever.

9. Thou shalt not forget that dialogue is as a foreign tongue, a semblance of speech and not a record of it, a language in which directness diminishes and obliqueness sings.

10. Above all, thou shalt not vent thy emotions onto the reader, for thy duty is to evoke the reader’s emotions, and in that most of all lies the art of the writer.

I believe the author who can violate this commandments only with good reason is well on his way to becoming a great storyteller. His characters will live on the page and project off it into the imagination of his readers.

-- L. Preschel author of the Sam-Cath mysteries. 

For the authors - The Writer as an invisible window.

The process of becoming an author/storyteller is a long one. Although some have a natural talent, others, most others, need time and practice to hone the art. Not everyone can attain clarity and accessibility of concepts easily. Ego is a beast that entices us to overwrite and say to the reader, I am here.  

To be an author, you need to harvest ideas until one is so striking that it must be explored on paper. I will get to that process in future blogs. I want to present the hardest lesson for a fledgling writer to learn: Invisibility.

Many a writer starts writing to become famous, successful, and maybe rich. "I'll be the next Hemingway." How disappointing it must be to find out that it is only by being anonymous among the pages of your manuscript that the author has any chance of being good, much less famous. Fame is based on general consensus and earnestly awarded through perspiration, Mr. Hemingway, Jr.  

The best writers are phantoms during the readers time within the pages of their manuscript.    

A truly great writer of any genre must tell a story without being seen. Although his attitudes and conceptions will color his writing, they must do so in such a way that the reader cannot discern them. Alternatively, the truly great writers are able to present their concepts in a way that the reader uses them as a starting point to reach the reader’s unique personal conclusions. The author has no investment in the reader's conclusions, he or she is merely the path. The road does not care where you take it. 

One only need think about the allegory of Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. This type of writing demonstrates the power of the author to convey his message without blocking the view, or asking for kudos.

The writer should be a window on a life/event that directs the reader’s attention to the action, but does not distract from viewing it. The tint of the glass should not be obvious or even better the glass should be invisible and the story should shine through. 

The clever writing of a novice, and the special tricks of the hack, do not make the reader’s pleasure greater. The abundance of metaphors, which are beautifully written and appropriately descriptive, maybe be too much, and stop the reader's progress, rather than add the color the author wants. We do not need to add sugar to honey, because it is already sweet enough. Some writers believe there can never be too much sweetness. The good writers know when the story is attractive enough and draws enough flies. 

The neophyte writer must learn to put his ego in chains, and not release it until the writing is finished. If he truly becomes the invisible person, then his story has a chance at success. The only time the reader should know that there is an author involved is when he looks at the title page.

-- L. Preschel author of the Sam-Cath mysteries.   

Hello and Welcome

Hello and Welcome honored guests.
I am an unpublished writer of murder mysteries. I will be writing about the process and the agonies of creative writing. Specifically communication to an unseen audience in a land possibly far, far away. Communicating across space and time emphasizing clarity of message and invisibility of the author. In person to person communication, the listener's expressions and immediate replies cue us to their understanding of our message or story. The writer enjoys no such feedback. It is only after his words are "written in stone" or more likely on paper that he receives any comments at all. 
Because of the permanency of the words on paper, the author cannot react and reiterate his words to make them more accessible to the listener/reader. 
Authors communicate in a one and done manner. Therefore, it behooves us to get it right the first time. 
Most readers do not think about the process that created the book or e-book manuscript in their hands. The hours of work and re-working of words, paragraphs, ideas and concepts, (editors and first readers to help gain some feedback) and then the final product - which often the writer wishes he could take back the minute he or she sees it published. Once printed, it is on the record and somewhat immutable. 

Oscar Wilde when queried about his days work answered. "I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again."

That is not very far from the truth even for us hack and pulp fiction writers. 
I hope through my blog, I will entertain you with stories of the wars to write and publishing without the risk of perishing in the gallant effort.

-- L. Preschel author of the Sam-Cath Murder Mysteries.