Please Note this blog has a sister blog that is more active in the future.

I have created a new blog - L.A. Preschel Presents Sam Cochran Mysteries.

My main characters Samantha Cochran and Catherine Worthington live there now.

They would welcome a visit.


Dr. Lewis Preschel aka L.A. Preschel

for writers: Elmore Leonard Makes Writing Simple

Do not dismiss this posting as only useful for mystery or cowboy writers. "Yup, I reckon, this here posting is helpful to anyone who wants to write well." 

Do not dismiss this as good advice for men writers. Elmore Leonard was a writer's writer. He was asked to write an article about writing for the New York Times, and it was so well received, that he turned it into a book, Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing, which sold successfully. If you don't like buying from Amazon, here is the link to Alibris, or use this link to booksamillion. A copy of this tome should never rest on the top shelf of a writer's library, where it cannot be reached at a moment's notice. It is a frequent flyer for a writer who wants to communicate to his audience. 

The New York Times asked him to write the article because, he writes well - and across many genres. He knows his subject, and he is smart enough to know what his audience wants. And then he sells it to them in an honest way so they want to read his works. 

He was known as the master of dialogue, and young writers are always told to read him to see how he makes his dialogue realistic. 
I will save you $11 bucks and briefly list his 10 rules, although just listing them does not have the same educational value, as reading his book.

He calls them tricks to good writing:

1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said"…he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

These rules were excerpted from his New York Times article. 

I am not 20% of the writer he is but I also know rules are made to be broken when that breakage serves a very good purpose. So before you write against the above rules one through nine, think hard and think long and never think suddenly. He said assuredly.  

The only rule that should never be broken is number ten. It is worth repeating. "Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. They are going to skip them anyway, why waste the ink?  

My added warning, especially to writers who have done extensive research and need to amortize their time and energy, be careful. You are walking on creative quicksand. Extraneous, show-off unimportant/insignificant knowledge {all knowledge that does not move the story forward or let the reader know vital information.}, no matter how seemingly appropriate, is just showing off. It slows us down, and makes us wonder if we understand the story. 

Readers hate a show-off. Readers hate being bored. Our answer is something an author does not want to hear. We put down the book, and worst yet, they bad mouth your style.

The best you can hope for is we give you a reprieve and just skip that section, and keep reading. But how many times can we give you a pass. Three strikes and you are out in baseball. When I read, you only get two strikes.  

Some setting and description of place and such is certainly appropriate, but every time a character twitches, we don't need to know the scenery in detail, and described ad-nauseum. If we wanted to read a travelogue, we would have bought one.  

In particular, I have started the book, the Alienist, twice (over the last 18 months), and cannot get past the first thirty-five pages. 

Maybe it is me.

Is it you too? 

Caleb, please, buy Elmore's book and read it. Not so much weather and less of the scenery, fewer hansom rides and more action early please. We know who Teddy Roosevelt was and what he became, but is that so fascinating that it can carry the story? 

I think my answer is clear.  

That's my opinion, what is yours?

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

For Readers & Authors - Mystery as Morality Plays - Carrying on the great tradition

Even from before the time of the Greek tragic playwrights, humans have been fascinated with the workings of eternal justice. How does morality balance the cosmos? When and how are the just rewards delivered to those of an evil ilk?  

The works of Aeschylus (Prometheus Bound, The Oresteia), Sophocles (Seven Against Thebes, Antigone, Oedipus the King, Electra), Euripides (Medea, Electra, Andromache, Herakles, The Trojan Women, Hecuba) and many subsequent playwrights show the intense desire humans hold for eternal justice, probably, because at times, it seems lacking on earth. 

The quest to provide justice on earth may have given birth to ancient religions or may be the religions gave birth to this quest, either way, humanity has been on it for ages. 

After all, is not the crux of religion, the balancing of earthly wrongs in the hereafter? The rewards of the just, postponed to eternity. In every religion in which heaven is hypothesized, the rewards are for the just, not the corrupt or evil souls. 

Human nature and mystery readers in particular are not that patient. In the same manner as the Greek audiences, they cannot delay their gratification that long. Wait an eternity for justice? Are you insane?  

Mystery readers are looking for the "bad guys/antagonists" to be found out, and justice to be brought by the protagonist on earth and especially by the last pages of the book. We want that sheet balanced before the epilogue.

When Snidely Whiplash gets what he deserves, the hero has put the world in order. We will even accept a Deus Ex Machina so our hero can serve justice to the evil villain. Whether he serves it with his fists, guns, dynamite or just an arrest, we are happy with the ending.  

We feel as if evil is under control. No bad deed goes unpunished. Since we are all good people, the story confirms the existence of immediate earthly Karma, at least on the page of a book.       

How simple? How logical? How utopian? How truly unrealistic?

Further along this line of logic, I propose, a writer needs a subject that is morally important to the reader to hold his or her interest throughout his story. Finding Michelle's lost sock may fascinate first graders, but to an adult audience it holds little interest. The loss of life, or money (a robbery) or a change of fortune carries much more weight to a mature reader. 

A subject of universal concern, bigger than life is needed for adults to stay reading, and people must be able to relate to that subject personally. Stir that reader's emotions and the interest brews deeply like a Starbuck's pour over. 

Write it in first person or third person, but keep that reader close to the action. They want the answer to the question, is there justice in this world? Tell it through Watson or let Holmes speak directly to the reader, your choice, either works.   

How will the detective/protagonist (In the well written book, the reader subconsciously substitutes "how will I") bring justice to balance the cosmos? They hope with the protagonist, and they plot against the antagonist. They read on. They fear for the good and wish against the bad. They turn another page.  

When justice is received, they put down the book with a satisfied feeling as if they themselves brought about this occurrence, enforcing the eternal balance of the literary cosmos.    

This theory elevates the intellectual raison d'etra of mysteries to that of the great Greek Tragedies. Mystery writers are the modern representatives of the ancient tradition.

In a mash-up of the above theories, we may easily assume that the greatest source of ideas for today's creative mystery writer is The Holy Bible, The Ten Commandments, and the seven deadly sins. 

For in Western culture what greater repository of morality exists than those precepts. Mystery writers such as Hammett, Chandler and Cain carry on the tradition of the Greek playwrights and bring justice and morality to the masses with antagonists that violate The Ten Commandments on a regular basis. 

Today we thank: James Patterson, Robert B. Parker, Mary Higgins Clark, Michael Connelly, Lee Child and their compatriots for sustaining the great legacy. 


-- L. Preschel author of the Sam-Cath mystery series.

Josephine Tey - Forgotten? Master of Mystery. The Stephen King of the 1940's

Those who don't know history, have no idea what they are missing.

Josepine Tey was born in July 25, 1896, until her death on February 13, 1952 she taught school and eventually wrote - quite well if her audience is any judge. Her real name was Elizabeth Mackintosh. She was Scottish and maybe her ability to write was fostered by her mother who was also a teacher. She had two sisters. 

Tey was her pen name for her mystery stories and she wrote plays under the name of Gordon Daviot. Apparently, this was her favored alias as she used it often in public to keep her personal life secure. She avoided press and shunned interviews as well as photographers. 

Maybe that is why a serious mystery reader of the late 20th century, which I consider myself to be, had no freakin' idea who the hell she was. Am I truly such an illiterate heathen? 
Is she important? Why do we care?

We do because, British Crime Writers listed her mystery: The Daughter of Time as the number one crime novel ever written in their list from1990. The Daughter of Time was published in 1951. Mystery Writers of America made a list in 1995, and The Daughter of Time was listed as number four. She is listed among Christie, Poe, Chandler, Conan Doyle, Cain, Sayers, Westlake, MacDonald, Greene, Leonard, and Hammett, as well as other more recent master of the genre. She is ahead of all of them on the MWA list except: Arthur Conan Doyle, Dashiell Hammett, and Edgar Allen Poe. 

And yet, I do not recall coming across her name prior to today. 

Her well-written novel is not a case of a blind squirrel bumping into the acorn once in a lifetime. She also holds down place number 11 on the CWA list with her novel: The Franchise Affair from 1948. 

But back to The Daughter of Time, while her serial's protagonist, Alan Grant, a Scotland Yard Inspector, is recovering immobile in his hospital bed from serious injuries, using the serves of his friends, he researches the mysterious murders of the nephews of King Richard the third. This is, of course, history to Inspector Grant as it is to us as well. Grant uses documents and reference books to reach a conclusion: King Richard was totally innocent of the death of the Princes. 

In writing this formate, she essentially created the format for historic mystery novels - I call them docu-fiction. In The Daughter of Time, Josephine Tey concludes: the infamous Richard III of Shakespeare, school history books, and folk memory, is a Tudor fabrication - a device of literary fiction for England's most famous playwright. Her case for the defense is notably restrained. 

She was not limited to writing for theater or novels. 
A later novel, A Shilling for Candles (1936), became the basis for Alfred Hitchcock's favorite of his English era films, as Young and Innocent (1937). 

I doubt that in today's world of media tours - twitter, face book, p-interest, linked in, google plus, tsu, U-tube, streaming videos, Squiddo.com, goodreads, MySpace, Shelfari, authornation, Hubpages, Digg.com, Stumbleupon, Reddit.com, Mixx.com - that Josephine Tey aka Gordon Davoit, or the real person, Elizabeth Mackintosh could have survived as she wanted to, as a recluse, unbothered and invisible. She could not have stayed such a hermit. Unless her name is Stephen King.   

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

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.