Interview: Jochem Vandersteen of Sons of Spade

by Jaden Terrell

Today's Murderous Musings interview is with Jochem Vandersteen, webmaster of the Sons of Spade review site and author of the Noah Milano stories. Jochem lives in the Netherlands with his wife and baby. He works in IT and writes for Rockportaal, a dutch website about rock music. Sons of Spade is a review site for private detective novels and can be found at http://www.sonsofspade.tk or http://sonsofspade.blogspot.com. I've been reading Jochem's blog for over a year now, and it's a great place to find new authors and learn about new releases from old favorites.

MM: How did you become interested in private detective novels?

Jochem: I think it started with watching Philip Marlowe and Spenser on TV. That got me interested in their novels. I loved the fact that these were intelligent men who stood up for what they believed in. As a young man they were good role models.

MM: Why do you think private detective novels continue to be popular?

Jochem: Although a lot of times debates pop up that say the PI novel is dead, they’re still coming out and we’re still enjoying them. I think they stay popular because they’re such archetypes. They fit in there with knights, superheroes and cowboys. Everybody knows what to expect from them. Also, they’re a great way to tell a good crime story without getting lost in procedural details.

MM: You’ve written one of your own, White Knight Syndrome. Can you tell us a little bit about it?

Jochem: Noah Milano, a Los Angeles security specialist is hired to bodyguard a beautiful and rich teenage girl he's drawn into a web of family secrets, homicide and the dangers of falling in love.

It's not easy to be a White Knight in a world filled with betrayal and mob violence but Noah Milano is going to try anyway... even if he has to die doing it...

It's onsale right now from Amazon.com!

MM: What’s your writing process?

Jochem: I spent every minute of the day plotting, coming up with characters. And only a few hours every week writing I’m afraid. If there were only more hours in a day.

MM: Tell us a bit about your character. Who is he? What makes him unique?

Jochem: Noah Milano is the son of a mobster, trying to make amends with a violent past after the death of his mother. He works as a security specialist, but that really means he’s a PI. Or, sometimes, a thug for hire. What makes him unique is that he constantly tries to be different from the violent, selfish man he used to be. It isn’t easy however, because his main job skills are his proficiency in violence and his knowledge of the underworld.

MM: In ways is your character like you?

Jochem: He likes rock music and comic books. He’s got a sense of humour not everybody thinks is funny.

MM: In what ways is he different?

Jochem: He’s better looking, better armed and a hell of a lot tougher.

MM: Will there be other books in the series?

Jochem: Probably not. I put out a collection about him some time ago, though. It’s still available for free when people e-mail me asking for it. Also, I just put out a split novella featuring Noah. It’s also available for free. He’ll be popping up on the web in short stories again soon.

MM: What writers have most influenced your writing?

Jochem: Raymond Chandler, Robert B. Parker, John Connolly, James Lee Burke, Lawrence Block, Robert Crais, early Pelecanos, Dennis Lehane.

MM: How does your perspective as a Dutch writer influence your work?

Jochem: I don’t know really. I try to give the stories a very USA-feel and I seem to pull that of. I don’t think my perspective is different from the writers in the USA.

MM: What gave you the idea to start the Sons of Spade blog? How did it come to be?

Jochem: I wanted to promote my work, so I created the blog. When I discovered a lot of writers were more than happy to work with me it really took off. It’s a very rewarding way to get to know fellow PI-lovers.

MM: Has the blog opened in any doors for you? If so, in what way?

Jochem: It gave me the opportunity to read a lot of PI novels before they come out, which is really great. Also, some PI writers were nice enough to write introductions to my collection Tough As Leather, which is really cool.

MM: What’s the best part of writing a blog like this?

Jochem: Hearing back from people who love it.

MM: What’s the worst?

Jochem: Not hearing back from people who love it.

MM: How do you find authors to interview?

Jochem: Surfing the web I keep up with new PI writers. Most of them are very happy to be interviewed, eager to promote their work but also very nice people.

MM: Who would your dream interview be with, and why?

Jochem: I’d still like to interview Robert Crais and Dennis Lehane, because they’re big names in the genre and very big inspirations.

MM: Do you prefer to contact writers, or do you want them to contact you? If they have a book they would like you to review, what should they do?

Jochem: I love it when they contact me. If they want books reviewed, be interviewed or whatever they can always write to me at jvdsteen@hotmail.com.

MM: You’re also involved in the music industry. How do you manage to juggle all your interests and responsibilities?

Jochem: It’s tough. With a family, a fulltime job and a lot of books to read it’s not easy to find enough time. I try to keep my hand in the rock business as well as the crime writing business as well as I can. Mainly it’s just trying to take advantage of every free hour I have.

MM: Is there anything I’ve neglected to ask that you’d like to discuss?

Jochem: Not really. Just a note to all of you people who have anthologies coming out: my short stories have been pretty well received by fellow crime writers and I’m really looking to contribute to more anthologies. So, get in touch with me if you’re thinking about running my stories.

I Just Want Somebody to Love

By Beth Terrell

Lately, I've had occasion to read a number of manuscripts from aspiring authors. Some have been excellent, some interesting but rough around the edges, and some in need of serious editing. One of the most frustrating issues I've seen is the grammatically polished manuscript that lacks emotional resonance. I hear the same complaint from others who are involved in the same endeavor as I. "This is very well written, but...," followed by a helpless gesture. "No spark." It's frustrating because these stories are written by good writers, writers who have worked at their craft and who clearly have ability.

Sometimes the plots are action-packed, but there's no one with whom the reader can be emotionally engaged. These stories, no matter how brilliantly-conceived, feel flat. Sometimes there is a remarkable prologue that is both poignant and authentic, with a richness of detail and a depth of emotion that made me say, "Yes! This is what it's all about." But then, chapter one would bring an adequately written scene with a reasonably likable protagonist doing things that ought to be rife with tension but somehow aren't. Often, the rest of the piece has no connection to the prologue, or the connection is only tangential. Sometimes the story is elegantly written, but the writer gets caught up in the language and forgets to tell the story. Beautiful writing can only carry a story so far; if there are twenty pages between the time our hero pours a vodka tonic and the time he takes his first sip of it, there's a good chance the story could use some tightening. (I'm talking about mystery/suspense, not literary fiction, but even in literary fiction, a writer who's going to try that had better be very, very good at it.)

I think this happens for several reasons. First, we know our characters so well, we often think we've put things on the page that we haven't. "Of course she locked him out of the house and threw his electric guitar out the window. He knew her father was an abusive drunk who beat and humiliated her throughout her childhood, but he still came home three sheets in the wind after a night out with the boys." We know our character's motivations, but unless we find a way to (subtly) show our readers this, they'll just think she's an irrational witch who just broke her husband's most prized possession without warning.

Another reason may be that we tend to do more of what we do well. Elmore Leonard does dialogue very well. You'll notice that his books have a lot of dialogue. James Lee Burke is a master of description. Guess what his book is full of. Of course, Leonard and Burke are geniuses at what they do, but we lesser souls do the same thing. I'm good at character development. The first draft of my book had almost no plot at all, but boy did it have character development. It was one long character study with a little thread of mystery woven through it. I'm pretty good at dialogue too, so naturally, people in my first draft talked a lot. To make that book into something readable, I had to become aware of my strengths and weaknesses and then work hard to showcase the former and strengthen the latter. I'm still no James Lee Burke, but I learned how and when to describe things. I'm no Philip Margolin, but I learned how to plot.

Reading these manuscripts taught me that, while the ability to write beautifully is a great gift, it can only carry a book so far. The reader has to care about what happens---and they usually only care what happens if they care who it's happening to.

Give us someone to love, though, and we'll follow you anywhere.

Seek and ye shall find

By Chester Campbell

Do you harness the power of your word processor’s search and replace function? Every writer knows he or she can change a character’s name throughout the book with a simple click of the mouse. And most of us have learned the hard way to specify “whole words only.” Otherwise, if Art is changed to Will, we wind up with words like “pWillnership.”

Beyond this simple but valuable strategy, using only the search feature can save lots of headaches. My first mystery came back from the editor with the comment (among lots of others) that I must have an affinity for the color blue. I had numerous blue eyes, blue cars, blue suits, blue whatevers. When I searched on the word “blue,” it came up 51 times in a 261-page manuscript.

I then searched for other colors, finding green 23 times, brown 21, red 17, and yellow 8. I combed through the book and toned down my color palette until the scorecard read brown 18, blue 17, green 17, and red 17. Yellow remained a respectable eight. When the manuscript went back to the editor, he was pleased.

Another literary bugaboo is the use of adverbs. I agree, they should be toned down, though an occasional adverb is useful in clarifying an action. In that first book I mentioned above, I searched for “ly” words and found 12 in the first three pages. My new book, The Surest Poison, has only four “ly” adverbs in the same number of pages.

I didn’t feel too badly (to use a good adverb), however. F. Scott Fitzgerald used 12 in the first three pages of his classic novel, The Great Gatsby. A random check of some popular current authors showed the following three-page results:

Harlan Coben – nine
Barbara Parker – six
Ian Rankin – five
James Lee Burke – four

I could say more about adverbs, but I'll leave that for another time.

One use I make of the search feature is to find a particular scene during the revision process. I may not remember where it is, but I can recall a character in the scene, or a place name, or some unique descriptive term. I’ll enter that in the search field and a few clicks on the “next” button will take me to the scene.

I’m only familiar with the search and replace feature in Word for Windows, but I’m sure the other word processors have something similar. If you click the “More” button, you get lots of different options. You can search up or down or through the whole file. You can choose to match the case of what you type in the search field. If you’re looking for a proper name, that will make sure the first letter is capitalized. Another option is “sounds like,” so you don’t even need to spell the word correctly.

A handy feature is the “Special” button, which allows you to search for a particular font or a special character such as an em dash or an ellipsis.

Search and replace is a powerful feature for the writer. Make full use of it if you want to save time and get things right. It no doubt offers plenty of other possibilities. Have you found particular uses that I haven’t mentioned?

By the way, I’m in the sixth day of my blog book tour for The Surest Poison. You’ll find me today at Ann Parker’s Silver Rush Mysteries blog talking about Writing the Private Eye.

James Lee Burke Is One Scary Dude

by Ben Small

For the longest time, I didn't read James Lee Burke. A friend had portrayed his writing as describing frogs on a bayou log. "How many times can you describe that frog?" my friend said.

Then I read Burke. Had some spare time, and one of his books appeared as if by magic. Okay, so I was curious: What was so great about a frog - Budweiser ads excepted - that merited description in oh so many books?

Well, wow! That frog does dance.

Most "How To" books urge the writer not to go overboard on description, to keep the picture portrayals strictly relevant to the story, lest the reader get side-tracked or bored. And many writers violate that rule, and are shot as a consequence. But Burke gets away with using descriptions to fill about a third of his page count.

How does he do this?

Simple. He puts the reader in the bayou, swimming in the muck and quicksand, swatting the mosquitoes, sweating like Kirstie Alley in a sauna, and stinking like a Kathy Reichs' bloated-body-bugfest.

And evidently, a lot of people like to experience that: mucking, swatting, sweating and stinking. Or is it that they don't; that they want to experience Louisiana without actually going there? I'd say count me in that post-Katrina group except for one thing: the food. My god, the food. Why can't Arizona make a decent facsimile of Louisiana gumbo?

Well, I've gotten side-tracked here. The mere thought of Louisiana food always does that to me. Back to James Lee Burke and his writing.

What kind of nutbag is this guy?

Stephen King and other writing authorities suggest writing what you know. If James Lee Burke is doing that, I can learn from this man. More or less, every one of his books I can remember has featured a cast of people you never want to meet: degenerate preachers; evil rich bad guys who lust after pretty young and innocent things; pimps and prostitutes; druggies and boozers; tattoed boob-ettes; gunbulls; prison rapists; mobsters; gamblers; hitmen; crooked cops and politicians, and last but not least, Clete Purcell.

Can there be a more degenerate character than Clete? Forget the gut, the unhealthy glow of 220-over-140 blood pressure readings, and his pock-marked and sweaty sun-burned neck. This stuff just makes Clete look like Larry, the cable guy. No, Clete's got the personality to match these wonderful characteristics. Pop your fingers and count: 1) Clete's always drunk and sweaty; 2) He can be counted on to say and do the dumbest of things to all the wrong people; 3) He's killed a federal informant; 4) He enjoys drugs and prostitutes; 5) He was a corrupt N.O. cop; 6) He's murdered a bunch of people in a plane crash; 7) He's probably left more teeth in toilets than a dental convention, and 8) He's been known to attack with innovative weapons such as hammers, fully oiled frying pans, and tire irons. (These tools are just for novelty; Clete likes guns, knives, saps and baseball bats, too.) Clete actually enjoyed Vietnam, thought it was a hoot. So, of course, with all these charms, how can Clete help but be a babe-magnet? His latest conquest: an FBI agent. Smart guy, that Purcell: Go with a chick who can bust you for lying. What's next: Playing medicine ball with a hornet's nest?

But seriously, how could Clete not be a stud? He's so vulnerable, isn't he? What that poor man has had to endure. Clete's seen more hospitals than Doc Kildare. Poor S-O-B had his hand squashed in a car door; he's been smashed with enough iron to make him fearful of magnets; he's been shot so many times he could strain spaghetti, and in the latest Burke masterpiece Swan Peak he was tied to a tree, blindfolded, doused with gasoline and forced to listen to a Zippo's spinning wheel.

Doesn't Clete ever wonder if it's smart having Dave Robicheaux as a buddy? Seems to me the only thing more hazardous is having Jessica Fletcher around.

And what about Dave? Poor ole Dave Robicheaux stands for truth and justice, and it's cost Dave plenty. He's had wives murdered and a daughter threatened. He's been suspended numerous times, suspected of murder over and over. He's been beaten, stabbed, shot, haunted by Vietnam nightmares, and don't ask about his parental issues. The guy's a drunk. And is it any wonder? Dave's hollow inside; he's not just got worms in his head, they're full-bodied snakes. In Swan Peak, Dave - the good guy - threatens to throw a preacher into an airplane propeller. My goodness, we thought water boarding was bad. And, oh, did I mention, he married a nun? Dave best do some serious repenting.

So getting back to my point: If what Stephen King and others say about writing what you know is true, James Lee Burke is one spooky dude.

But can I learn from this man? Hell yes, about description and the depravity of man.

Do I want to be his pal?

Hmmm...

Why not. I just bought a Total Gym. Chuck Norris is my buddy.