Ten Things You Should Never Include in a Crime Novel

by Jean Henry Mead

I discovered an article in my files written by Andrea Campbell for The Writer magazine. It’s titled “10 Things Police Wish [Crime Writers] Would Omit" and I’m going to paraphrase here so as not to plagiarize:

Don’t have your cops always eating donuts. Most eat salads while on duty and they drink bottled water. They also work out to stay in shape, so if at least one of them mentions visiting a gym, it's realistic.

Policemen and veteran crime writers hate over-dramatization and not many real life detectives fight over a case. Crime writer Daryl W. Clemens is critical of plots where cops have a tug of war over a case that’s taken place on their jurisdiction border. They already have more work than they can handle.

Revolver silencers are another point of contention, according to crime writer Barbara D’Amato. She says, “Since the rotating cylinder is not closed, you can’t baffle the gasses” or muffle the sound.

Alcoholic policemen have been overdone and is another sore point for the police department. Former police officer and crime writer Robin Burcell wonder why so many fellow writers inject alcoholism into their plots.

Lone female detectives who search isolated areas without calling for backup is extremely foolhardy, according to writer Susan McBride. Make sure your woman detective alerts her partner or dispatcher of her plans and whereabouts.

Never tell a suspect to “Drop it, Pal,” because the gun could discharge when it’s dropped or tossed. Have the suspect place it on the ground and back away.

Never have police officers pointing their guns skyward, or what is referred to as “aiming at Jesus.” Police are trained to point a gun out and down, and directly ahead in preparation to discharge the weapon. Also, never have an officer jack a round into the gun’s chamber before entering a building. They always keep a round chambered, even in their holsters.

Don’t shatter a windshield. When hit by a bullet, there will be a small hole and spider web effect, even when hit several times.

Suspects are no longer called “perps,” unless your police department is located in New York, California, or a few other heavily populated areas. The term isn’t generally used anymore.

Police officers are burdened with lots of paperwork so make sure your cop does his or her share. According to Campbell, there’s “paperwork related to the Miranda warning before an interrogation; paperwork that police turn over to medical personnel at a hospital before interviewing a crime victim; and still more paperwork for requisitions and reports."

Readers of crime fiction are pretty savvy about police procedure. So do your research and don't depend on what you've seen in films and on TV. Sloppy research may result in readers passing up your next release in favor of writers who have done their homework.

The History of Mystery

by Jean Henry Mead

Edgar Allen Poe started it all with his first detective story, but as Carolyn Wheat asks in her book, How to Write Killer Fiction, "What’s happened to the mystery genre since [Sherlock] Holmes hung up his deerstalker hat and started keeping bees?” 

Wheat states that mysteries have been split into three distinct strands: the classic whodunit, the American hard-boiled detective story and the procedural. She divides up the whodunit category into the regional mystery, historical, comic relief and says you need a gimmick for niche mysteries and the dark cozies. Her book was published in 2003, and a number of subgenres have since been added to the list, including the science fiction mystery.

I love niche mysteries such as Carolyn Hart’s series featuring a red-haired ghost who returns to earth to solve murders following her own death in a boating accident. And former NASA payload specialist Stephanie Osborn not only taught astronauts what they needed to know about space travel, she wrote a mystery involving the disappearance of a space shuttle after her friend was killed in the Challenger explosion.

The American hard-boiled detective story has certainly evolved from The Great Detective who solved crimes with his intellect. The list isn’t complete without the books of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Ross McDonald, Elmore Leonard and Lawrence Block. The plots take place in urban areas where murder and mayhem happen on a regular basis. You’d be hard pressed to find a hard-boiled detective story set in Cabot Cove, Maine, or St. Mary Mead, England. Or as Chandler once said, “Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished or afraid.” The phrase epitomizes the hard-boiled detective story that's alive and well in any number of currently written series.

The police procedural evolved when writers came to the conclusion that the majority of crimes were actually solved by detectives who used scientific methods to track down and apprehend criminals--much like Sherlock Holmes with modern equipment. They weren’t bunglers like the cops in Agatha Christie’s St. Mary Mead or mainly corrupt like the cops in Bay City, California. No one seems to know who first wrote procedurals although the genre was influenced by Wilkie Collins’ Sergeant Cuff in his book, The Moonstone, published in 1868, and TV’s Sgt. Joe Friday of the LAPD of the 1950s. Joseph Wambaugh and James Ellroy later refined the subgenre and placed a spotlight on the corruption, violence and racism of the Los Angeles police.

The dark cozy has lightened considerably in this country. I still love Christie’s sleuths and have concocted a few of my own, adding comic relief to my Logan and Cafferty amateur sleuth series. The dark cozy came into being with Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson, the first novel to use fingerprinting as a method of detection, long before they were used in real-life police work.

An Island Adventure Worth Writing About

by Jean Henry Mead




The Tatoosh Islands

I was invited to Tatoosh by my brother Bob, a career coast guardsman, who was in charge of the small island group collectively named for a chief of the Makah Indian nation. The three small islands are the most northwesterly point of the continental U.S. and located in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, half a mile from the coast of Neah Bay, Washington. The lighthouse, Cape Flattery, was located on Tatoosh's main island.

My vacation to Tatoosh was an adventure from the start. My first plane belly-dived onto the runway in Stockton, California, because the landing gear failed to release. A rough landing but, fortunately, no one was hurt. It did, however, result in a six-hour delay before a replacement plane arrived. That placed us in Seattle-Tacoma airport at about 4 o’clock in the morning. At 6:30 a.m. I learned that I was to fly the remainder of the trip on a three-seater, single engine Cessna--no larger than my car--over the Olympic Mountains to Neah Bay. By the way, it was my first ever trip by plane.

Seated behind the pilot and another passenger, I could see the mountain peaks protruding through the clouds and I’ve never been so frightened in my life because air currents had us falling dangerously close to the peaks. When we reached the tiny airport some miles from Neah Bay, the landing strip appeared to be  a narrow, cracked sidewalk with weeds growing between the cracks.

My brother wasn’t there to meet me, so I hitched a ride with the other passenger, who was stationed at the coast guard base located on the Makah Indian reservation at Neah Bay. Halfway to the base we noticed a car parked along the road with a long, familiar pair of legs hanging out the door. It was my brother Bob, who was sleeping it off from a night at the club on the base the night before. It had been two months since he had been off the island. 

We then proceeded to the base where we waited for a small boat to come from the island to pick us up. When we reached the main island of Tatoosh, an inexperienced coastie was operating the crane which lowered the boatswain’s “chair” to the ocean to pick us up. The wooden box was about two feet square and six inches high and connected to a cable. I was lifted from the boat up a sheer rock face that appeared to be a hundred feet high. I screamed like a wounded water buffalo. When I reached the top, the box was swung to a wooden platform, landing hard enough to nearly break both my ankles.

Did I mention that the airline lost my luggage?

Cape Flattery on the main Tatoosh Island

I wore my brother’s coast guard uniforms for a week, and fortunately, one of the coasties had a pair of tennis shoes that fit. The fog horn woke me repeatedly during the night although the other inhabitants of the island were able to sleep through the noise.

I loved the lighthouse at Cape Flattery, located at the western end of the half mile by quarter mile island. The lighthouse was built in 1857, and the island has alternatively been inhabited by Makah Indian fishing parties, the coast guard, weather bureau employees and the navy. The guest book was fascinating to read and I wish I had been able to photograph some of the entries. It told of 19th century fishermen and explorers who visited the island by climbing the rocks. Some of their companions drowned or were killed from falls in the process.

I nearly lost my own life when I volunteered to mow the jungle-like undergrowth that threatens to take over the island. The tractor slid backward down an embankment and nearly went over the edge onto the rocks below. Once was enough. It still gives me shivers thinking about it.

A bird sanctuary is located adjacent to the main island (upper left in top photo) where I watched a variety of colorful sea birds take off and land, as well as seals and other marine life. Across the Strait of Juan de Fuca is Vancouver Island, Canada, which I could see on a clear day, which wasn't very often. When I wasn’t watching sea birds and visiting the lighthouse I enjoyed playing pool with the coasties and watching films in their small basement movie theatre. 

We were fogged in the morning I was scheduled to leave so I was able to stay two extra days. The morning I left, a small coast guard cutter arrived with my luggage, so I dressed like a civilian and boarded the cutter for the trip back to the mainland. Five minutes later, a wave swamped the boat and I looked like a drowned rat when I boarded the small plane for the trip back to Seattle. During the subsequent trip home, my plane left without me in Stockton, California, so I waited again for another plane.

I'd been expected to start my first newspaper reporting job several days before I returned home and was nearly fired before I began. The publisher said he'd traveled to northwestern Washington several times and had never heard of Tatoosh. Thankfully, I was able to whip out an island postcard, which saved my job. I also wrote a feature story about the trip.

The island is no longer inhabited and no coast guardsmen or weather station employees remain. Tatoosh has become one of the  most intensively studied field sites for marine life in the world. Studies have discovered how various species are linked to one another through a network of interactions and how environmental changes resulting in the extinction of certain species have affected the marine life food chain.

Anyone who now wants to visit the Tatoosh islands must ask permission from the Makah Indian Reservation officials at Neah Bay on Washington’s beautiful Olympia Penninsula . . .

Wyoming Cold Cases Solved

As Wyoming lies beneath a thick blanket of snow, two chilling cold case murder mysteries have allegedly been solved. An elderly married couple accused of killing four people more than thirty years ago have admitted murdering their former spouses as well as two young boys.
 

I recall hearing about the disappearances of Virginia Uden and her two young sons, Reagan and Richard, while I was driving alone in Wyoming during the early 1980s, interviewing residents for my first book. I thought at the time that a serial killer was roaming the state’s highways because a fellow photojournalist also disappeared during that time period, his car found still running with the driver’s door open and one of his socks on the ground. As far as I know, that case has not been solved. 

The couple was arrested this week in rural Missouri, where Gerald Uden confessed that he had shot and killed his former wife and her two sons when his current wife, Alice Holtz-Uden, was arrested for the murder of her 25-year-old former husband. She allegedly tossed his body down an abandoned gold mine shaft during the mid-1970s after filing for divorce a few months after the wedding. Shooting him in the back of his head while he slept, she reportedly hid the body in a barrel until she later disposed of it in the mine.  

The two killers apparently didn’t know each other when they committed their crimes but later met and married. They then moved from Wyoming to Missouri where they raised two children and were respected members of the community.  Members of their local church, they’ve been described by neighbors as good people, “the kind of neighbors you leaned over the fence and talked about your chickens with," Allen Bishop said. “They were just the old neighbors next door."

Another neighbor told a local TV station: “I was in disbelief. They are old people. They don't do things like that." 

Now in their 70s, the couple is in custody in the Chadwick, Missouri jail, awaiting extradition to Wyoming. According to a law enforcement source, someone Alice Holtz had confided in 30 years ago about her husband’s death finally came forward to tell what had happened, Ronald Holtz’s remains were subsequently found. However, the whereabouts of the bodies of Virginia Uden and her sons has not been revealed.

This gruesome story may sound like a work of fiction but the truth is definitely stranger. And in this case, much colder than the average murder mystery.

~Jean Henry Mead

Historic Poisonings

The discovery of poisons occurred when prehistoric tribes foraged for food; an often deadly experience. Primitive poison experts were people to be reckoned with, and they either served as tribal sorcerers or were burned at the stake, depending on whom they practiced.

Our first written accounts of poisonings are from the Roman era over 2,000 years ago, although the Chinese, Egyptians, Sumerians and East Indians had practiced the art of poisoning for centuries. Cleopatra allegedly used her slaves and prisoners as guinea pigs while searching for the perfect suicidal poison. She tried belladonna and found that it killed quickly but was too painful for her own personal demise. She also tried an early form of strychnine but it caused facial distortions at death, so she chose instead the bite of an asp, a small African cobra, which produced a quick and painless death.

People in some cultures were so afraid of being poisoned that they consumed gradual amounts of various poisons on a regular basis to build up their immunity. Dorothy L. Sayers, in her book, Strong Poisons, had her villain doing just that, as did Alexander Dumas in The Count of Monte Cristo.

Food tasters were employed by most royals. If they survived after sampling each dish, the king would consent to eat his meal. The job must have paid well, or a steady stream of prisoners were employed against their will.

The use of poison-tipped arrows during the Renaissance period paved the way for modern pharmacology. Drugs such as astropine, digitalis and ouabain evolved from plant concoctions used for killing both people and animals. And as we now know, thousands of people are killed each year with pharmaceutical prescriptions.

The Roman Borgia family of the fifteenthnth century century was a dynasty of poisoners, according to Serita Deborah Stevens in her book, Deadly Doses. If Casare Borgia was offended by something someone said, the unsuspecting person was invited to attend a party and would leave seriously ill or in the back of a mortician’s wagon. Borgia's poison of choice was arsenic, the favorite of assassins of that era.

Bernard Serturner isolated morphine from opium in 1805, but the formal study of poisons began with Claude Bernard, a physiologist, who researched the effects of curare, a South American poison the Indians used to tip their arrows. Chemical analysis could detect most mineral compounds by 1830, although not organic poisons. By 1851, a Belgian chemist discovered the technique of extracting alkaloid poisons while investigating a homicide caused by nicotine, a very deadly poison. Jean Servais Stas was the first to isolate nicotine from postmortem tissue.

The use of poison as a means of murder declined when modern methods of detection were perfected and physicians began saving many of its victims.

~Jean Henry Mead

Fear of Writing

by Jean Henry Mead

The biggest drawback to a writer’s success is fear. Fear of criticism from one’s peers or condemnation from the general public. Fear of negative reviews or of spending a year or more writing a book that doesn’t sell. Fear of hiring an agent who won’t send your book to the right publisher. The list is endless.

Fear is a natural human response, especially when you step off into unknown territory such as a new genre, new publisher, new editor. Even bestselling authors fear losing their readers. So how does a writer overcome those fears? By believing in your abilities and talents. Persistence or staying power must be a tool in every writer’s bag. Marcel Proust couldn’t finish his epic Remembrance of Things Past until his mother died because he feared hurting her feelings. How many other books have been set aside and never published because writers feared repercussions?

The writing profession kindles fear and involves taking risks but writers have to come to grips with their fears and channel them into their work, such as thriller novelists who produce chilling stories for their readers. Writer Greg Lavoy advises fellow scribblers not to ignore fear. “Whatever is suppressed not only has power over you, but will help create obstacles to continually remind you of what you’re hiding from, where you feel you don’t measure up, and whether you don’t have faith in yourself. Success often has as much to do with finding what is standing in your way as with talent or persistence.”

Plugging in a night light for someone who fears the dark doesn’t eliminate fear of the dark, only the darkness. Similarly, not sending out submissions to new publishers not only eliminates fear of rejection, it eliminates the ladder to success.

The poet W.H. Auden said, “Believe in your pain. Take it seriously,know that it has meaning and utility, and that it grows a powerful kind of writing.” Unfortunately, most of us will do everything in our power to avoid fear and rejection so we don’t learn from it.

Settings as Secondary Characters

By Jean Henry Mead

Selecting your novel's setting is important because it not only adds color to the plot, it serves as a secondary character. People against nature has created countless adventures, from Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea to Jack London's story, "To Build a Fire."  Stranding someone in the middle of the Sahara Desert is far more intriguing than having a car stolen from a city street, so  settings should be considered carefully.
 

My amateur sleuths travel in a motorhome about the West and the setting changes with each book. Although Dana Logan and Sarah Cafferty began solving murders in their California retirement village, Dana inherits her sister’s mansion in Wyoming, so the settings change considerably. Both 60-year-old widows are feisty and determined to get to the bottom of each mystery they encounter. In Diary of Murder, Logan and Cafferty are forced to drive through a Rocky Mountain blizzard in their motorhome, an experince I'd had years earlier.  In Murder on the Interstate, they're caught in torrential rain when they discover the body of a young woman in her Mercedes convertible in Arizona.
 

In my fourth and most recent novel, Gray Wolf Mountain, the setting is Wyoming’s Laramie Mountains, an area I know well because I live there. I also set a children’s mystery, Ghost of Crimson Dawn, on our ranch for the Hamilton Kids’ mystery series. The possibilities are endless in the mountains and have provided me with the backdrop for a mystery which includes the unwarranted killings of wolves by trigger-happy hunters. I researched the problem in Wyoming, and was shocked to learn that the situation exists in other states as well as Canada. The wolves are shot en masse from helicopters in the Yukon to increase the Caribou herd to 100,000, solely for the benefit of big game hunters. The Yukon is a setting that few writers have ventured to write about.

My themes usually encompass social problems and I incorporate humor and a little romance to prevent the storyline from becoming dreary. By setting each plot in an unusual area, it hopefully enhances reader awareness and interest by educating as well as entertaining him or her.

Gray Wolf Mountain is available in print and on Kindle.  

Bestselling Author Alina Adams and the Soaps

by Jean Henry Mead

Alina Adams is the New York Times bestselling author of Oakdale Confidential, The Man From Oakdale and Jonathan's Story (with Julian London). She has written figure skating mysteries for Berkley Prime Crime, and romances for Avon and Dell. She's currently in the process of converting her entire backlist to enhanced ebooks with audio, video, and more, as well as creating original works such as "Soap Opera 451: A Time Capsule of Daytime Drama's Greatest Moments."

You have an interesting background, Alina. Born in Russia and learning English at age seven by watching soap operas on TV in San Francisco must have influenced your later writing.

I have a very hard time stopping a story. As a reader and as a writer. As a reader, if I fall in love with a particular set of characters, I want the story to continue forever. I feel the same way as a writer. I want to know what happens next. And what happens after that. And after that. And after that. That's why my next project, "Counterpoint," is going to be a continuing series of novels. But, inspired by a project I launched for Procter and Gamble in 2009, http://www.AnotherWorldToday.com, I am actually going to ask readers to chime in on where they want the story to go next, and then I'm going to write it according to their specifications!


Tell us about your writing background?

I've published a dozen novels - regency romance, contemporary romance, non-fiction, and women's fiction with various publishers, ranging from Avon to Simon and Schuster. Now, I have gotten the rights back to a majority of my books and am in the process of releasing them as enhanced e-books. For instance, for my Figure Skating Mystery series, I made a deal with Ice Theatre of New York (http://www.icetheatre.org/) to include their performances in my books to represent the various fictional characters. I also produced a book for a fellow author. Dan Elish is a Broadway writer ("13") and he'd published a children's book in 1988, "The Worldwide Dessert Contest," as well as written a musical score to go with it. I combined the two to create "The Worldwide Dessert Contest: Enhanced Multimedia Edition." I am also developing other titles with writers of romance, Young Adult, and non-fiction to re-release them all as enhanced ebooks. Authors who think they have titles that might benefit from enhancement can contact me at: http://www.alinaadamsmedia.com/.

What was it like working for Proctor and Gamble Productions as website producer for the soaps, “Guiding Light” and “As the World Turns”?

I was there for 10 years, and I had a wonderful time. Writing the websites meant writing in the voices of characters from the show, characters I hadn't created but still needed to bring to life through words (without the help of actors!). It's a great skill for any writer to have.

Tell us about your latest groundbreaking project, Soap Opera 451: A Time Capsule of Daytime Drama's Greatest Moments.

Soap fans love to talk about their favorite moments. And there have been books written on the history of various soaps and stories. But, up until now, you could only read about how great they were, you couldn't actually view the scenes themselves. That's all changed now. Soap Opera 451: A Time Capsule of Daytime Drama's Greatest Moments is a one of a kind book in that, after asking fans and soap experts what were some of the greatest moments of all time, I interviewed the actors, writers, producers and directors involved with those moments - and then I added links to where you could actually view them. It's a completely interactive experience that's never been done before.

How did you become a bestselling author?

Doug Wilson, who directed ABC's figure skating coverage for many, many years tells a story of how, during the 1988 Olympics, he was planning to open Brian Boitano's Long Program with a shot from across the ice. But, the camera he'd designated for it broke down, and he had to improvise what became Boitano's dramatic, opening head-shot, which is still used on retrospective shows today.

According to Doug, "This just goes to show, that if you work hard and prepare and plan everything out... there's not telling how lucky you can get." Like Doug, when it came to being a bestselling author, I got lucky. In December of 2011, I wrote a biography of skater Sarah Hughes, hoping she would at least make a respective showing at the Salt Lake City Olympics. Two months later, she won the whole thing.

In 2006, I pitched the idea of doing a book based on "As the World Turns" to coincide with their 50th Anniversary. The show wrote the book into the on-air story. And "Oakdale Confidential" debuted at #3 on "The New York Times" best-seller list.

Advice for novice writers.

Writing is a job. Treat it like a job. Don't wait for inspiration to strike. Just get up in the morning, do what you have to do (in my case, it's get three kids off to two different schools, pack lunches, and periodically remind my sleepy husband what time it is, so he can make it to work on time), and then sit down and write. (This advice also works if you're an evening person. In that case, just substitute doing the dishes and putting kids to bed for waking them up and packing lunches.) Write one word. Then write the next word. And the next sentence. Keep writing. I think it was Danielle Steele who said, "It's much easier to rewrite a bad page, than a blank page."

Oh, and here is something really depressing. You know those days when the writing flows and it's brilliant and easy? You know those days when every word feels like pulling teeth and sweating blood? Go back and read the whole book a year after it's published. Both passages will read exactly the same.

Finally, don't for a minute think that your job as a writer is done once the book is on the shelves and up at Amazon. Promoting your own work is the most important part of being a writer. As the frustrated artist laments in Stephen Sondheim's "Sunday in the Park with George," "If no one gets to see it, it's as good as dead."

We may not like it, we may wish matters worked differently, but keeping your work alive is your job. Same as writing it.

Alina can be reached via her website: http://www.AlinaAdams.com

Interview with Jean Henry Mead

by Jackie King

Jean Henry Mead, author of both fiction and nonfiction books, says that featuring other writers on her blogs is one of her greatest pleasures. Five of Mead’s 17 books are collections of her interviews. The latest, The Mystery Writers: Interviews and Advice, is a collection of different postings that originated at her Mysterious Writers blog site. “They were so informative that I didn’t want them to disappear into cyber space after their initial appearances,” Mead says.

Jean Henry Mead

Following the example of Agatha Christie, the mystery writer icon who recycled her 20^th century short stories into novels; Jean Henry Mead is recycling her 21st century interviews into anthologies.
 

I was most interested in how such books evolved, so I asked Jean if she would answer a few questions. Much to my delight, she agreed:

JK: Jean, would you tell us how you first came up with the clever and interesting idea of interviewing celebrities and then publishing these pieces in an anthology?

JHM: I began my career as a news reporter, so the first book I wrote—and published in 1982—was a collection of interviews with well-known Wyoming residents, such as Dick Cheney, country singer Chris LeDoux, U.S. Senator Alan Simpson, attorney Gerry Spence, some governors, artists and other interesting people. The Mystery Writers is my fifth book of interviews.

 JK: How do you set up interviews with such famous mystery writers as Sue Grafton, J.A. Jance and Lawrence Block, who are included in your newly published, The Mystery Writers: Interviews and Advice.

The Mystery Writers: Interviews and Advice

JHM: I was fortunate to interview Elmore Leonard before he became so famous. (We were both members of Western Writers of America at that time.) So when I emailed other bestselling authors for interviews, I mentioned Elmore Leonard, which probably gave me some credibility. I think the fact that I was also a member of Mystery Writers of America helped as well.

JK: What was the hardest part of compiling and editing so many articles and interviews?

JHM: Compiling all those interviews was very time consuming and took me away from working on my novels. I had to send out sixty manuscripts for updates, ask each author to write a short piece on the craft of writing, and then, when everything started coming back, I felt as though I were at the bottom of an avalanche. But it all worked out eventually at 406 pages.

JK: Do you plan to do another volume of this series in the future?

JHM: I don’t plan another. The Mystery Writers is the second volume of mystery writer interviews I’ve done. The first, Mysterious Writers, was published in 2010 by Poisoned Pen Press in ebook format and is still available. I wanted to also publish a print edition, which I did with the second volume. I hope the interviews and advice are valuable tools for fledgling writers.

 JK: My final question has to be: who were your favorite mystery writer interviewees?

JHM: Carolyn Hart, Jeffrey Deaver, Lawrence Block, J.A. Jance, Sue Grafton, Elmore Leonard, Vickie Hinze and James Scott Bell, to name just a few. They were all great interviewees and I wish I’d had access to their advice, writing successes and failures, when I first began writing fiction.

JK: The entire volume has been a help to me. Like all writers, I’m forever striving to improve my skills. It’s a book I’ll keep and reread from time to time.

Thanks a million for your time and patience in answering my questions. I think your wisdom will help my readers.

Readers, Jean’s blog is Mysterious Writers.

Blog url: http://mysteriouspeople.blogspot.com/

Her website:

www.jeanhenrymead.com

Is Self-Publishing the Key to Publishing Success?

By Jean Henry Mead

Not everyone agrees that independent publishing is the key to writing success, but a growing number of authors are proving the naysayers wrong. More and more writers are leaving their publishers to strike out on their own, some with unparalleled success, such as Robert Walker, who has repeatedly said that the secret to success is to consistently turn out quality work on a regular basis.

But even Rob will admit that there’s more to it than that. We’ve all heard that writers need a platform and a fan base of readers who trust the author to turn out quality work. But how does one acquire a fan base? Not by hermitting him or herself at the computer without making contact with the outside world. Those days are over.

When I put together my second volume of mystery writer interviews, I met some successful new writers, among them Canadian International bestselling author Cheryl Kaye Tardif, who publishes not only her own work but others with her Imajin Press from Alberta.

Cheryl says in my new book,The Mystery Writers: “In 2010 Amazon opened KDP to Canadian authors and I went back to my roots—to indie publishing. For me it's probably the best fit. I am by nature very independent and a strong marketer. Plus I'm ‘an idea person.’ Even my old publisher saw this in me and often called me a "guru" or "marketing genius." While I don't consider myself a ‘genius’ I do know that I'm a risk-taker.”

Tim Hallinan, award-winning author of the traditionally published Poke Rafferty mystery/thriller series, decided to self-publish his Junior Bender series—humorous stories of a burglar with a “moral code who works as a private eye for crooks.” Tim’s earlier novels earned him critical acclaim but not enough money to retire from a day job. He now earns thousands of dollars a month with his self-published ebooks.

He said the reason he decided to leave his agent and publisher is because “the money we were offered by the publishers wasn’t very good. I looked at the offers and thought, ‘I’d rather own my books.”

Rebecca Dahlke once managed her father’s crop dusting service in Modesto, California, and decided that her protagonist—a beautiful former model—should also be a crop duster. She then decided to independently publish her novels, with successful results. Rebecca, like Cheryl, is a promoter and a humorous one at that. She says, “Self-publishing is no longer a dirty word. . . Eons ago, back in the dark ages (of publishing)—was it really only five years ago?—all we authors could hope for was a good agent, a decent publisher, a slowly growing fan base, and a list of book stores that might, or might not, keep our books on their shelves for three to six months before returning the unsold copies to the publisher. We could send in Advanced Reader Copies to prestigious reviewers or magazines and hope they would say nice things about our books, or pay a publicist to tout it, take our dog and pony show on the road, eat bad food, stay in crappy hotels, be at that next book store, book fair, conference, and smile till our cheeks ached. .

“The changes have been exciting, and for this author, validation that I too can write books that readers enjoy. So, for all the august veterans who see the Internet as an encroachment onto their hard-won personal turf, let me paraphrase one of my favorite movie lines: ‘Saddle up boys and girls, it’s going to be a bumpy ride’!” You can read how Rebecca accomplished her success in The Mystery Writers.

And, after ten publishers of my own over the years, I decided to independently publish The Mystery Writers with my own small press. The 406-page book is featured on Createspace and is also available on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.

The Mystery Writers is a veritable bible for fledgling writers because the advice offered by 58 bestselling, award-winning and midlist writers is invaluable for any genre. Twelve subgenres are represented and the authors write from as far away as South Africa, Brazil, Thailand, the U.S. and England.

Independent publishing isn’t for everyone. It requires not only writing talent but good marketing skills and industry know-how to succeed. A number of self- publishers are included in The Mystery Writers as well as bestselling traditionally published novelists such as Sue Grafton, Lawrence Block, J.A. Jance, Vicki Hinze and James Scott Bell (former Writer’s Digest fiction columnist).

To promote the book, I’ll be blog tourng from April 16-28 with the "Mystery We Write" blog group. My blog tour schedule is available online and I’ll be giving away a print copy of the book and an e-book copy in a drawing at the conclusion of the tour to visitors who leave comments with their email addresses throughout the tour.

Writing Series Novels

by Jean Henry Mead

After you write that standalone novel, your publisher may suggest that it become a series. So it’s important that you like your protagonist(s) and want to continue writing about them. Agatha Christie grew tired of writing about Hercule Poirot and wanted to kill him off, just as Conan Doyle attempted to rid himself of Sherlock Holmes.

When I began my Logan & Cafferty mystery/suspense series, I named my two protagonists Shirley Lock and Dora Holmes. They were known as Shirl Lock & Holmes, a corny spin on the detective and his physician narrator. When my publisher closed its doors, I resold the series and changed the names to Dana Logan and Sarah Cafferty. By that time my two women sleuths had become like old friends, whom I enjoy visiting to eavesdrop on their conversations.

Dana is a bit autobiographical while Sarah is like my friend Marge, who is outspoken and often so funny that she has me laughing tears. Dana is a mystery novel buff, who, with her friend Sarah, a private investigator’s widow, buy a motorhome to travel the West, as I’ve done.

Making the two women mobile provides them new settings in each novel. Although two of their motorhomes have been wrecked in the first three books, Dana’s wealthy sister dies and leaves her a considerable sum of money as well as a Wyoming mansion. The money allows them additional mystery solving opportunities as well as extensive travel.

Most protagonists have a job and the author needs to be knowledgeable about the occupation, or at least know the basics. And above all, enjoy writing about the job on a continuing basis, without becoming bored. Another pitfall is to change the tone of the writing. For instance, you shouldn't begin writing a cozy and decide in the middle of the series to darken it to a noir. Readers will complain. I’ve covered various subjects in my series, including adultery, drug gangs and homegrown terrorists, but with humor, so I’ve been able to get away with subjects not usually associated with two 60-year-old feisty amateur sleuths. And readers have fortunately told me that each book has been a fun read.

If your series becomes popular, you may have to continue writing it longer than you had planned. J. K. Rowling was able to discontinue her Harry Potter series after seven books but Sue Grafton is committed to 26. Her schedule has changed over the years and she now only writes three hours a day with one published novel every two years. At 71, she’ll be nearly 80 when Z is for Zero is released, but she plans to continue writing about her private investigator on a standalone basis after the series ends. She admits that Kinsey Millhone is her alter ego and that she enjoys writing about her.

I can't imagine writing 26 novels about someone you don't like and I'm glad that I enjoy my characters, especially my lovesick sheriff.

Wyoming Firsts

by Jean Henry Mead

I recently edited an unusual book, Wyoming Historical Trivia by J. J. Hammond, which contains some interesting, disturbing and amusing facts about Wyoming, including the state's many "firsts".

Which state first gave women the right to vote?

A bill granting Wyoming women the right to vote was signed into law by John Campbell, first territorial governor or December 10, 1869, but it was a Utah woman who cast the first vote on February 14, 1870. The Utah Territorial Legislature had passed its suffrage law four days earlier. Wyoming women didn’t vote until August of that year, but they, unlike Utah women, were allowed to hold public office.

Who was this nation’s first woman bailiff?

Mary Atkinson of Albany County, Wyoming, was appointed to her job in 1870, as was Esther Hobart Morris, this nation’s first woman justice of the peace.

When did the first all-women jury serve?

They were sworn in on March 7, 1870, in the town of Laramie, Wyoming.

Which Wyoming town was governed entirely by women?

Jackson was governed from 1920-1921 entirely by women. Grace Miller was elected mayor and Rose Crabtree defeated her husband, Henry, the former mayor, for a city council seat. The all-women council also approved the election of Pearl Williams as town marshal and Edna Huff as the Jackson health officer, among others.

Who was Wyoming’s first woman doctor?

Lillian Heath Nelson was one of three doctors in 1881 to perform an autopsy on outlaw George Manuse, aka “Big Nose George” Parrott. The autopsy was performed by removing the top of the outlaw’s skull to determine any criminal abnormalities. None apparently was found. Nelson reportedly dressed like a man and wore pistols strapped to her hips while studying obstetrics with a Wyoming doctor. (I’m not making this up.)

Who had shoes made from Big Nose George’s hide?

Dr. J. E. Osborne, who performed the outlaw’s autopsy, had shoes and a medical bag crafted from” Big Nose” George’s hide. The doctor, who became Wyoming’s governor (1893-95) is said to have worn the shoes while holding office. The shoes and George’s skull are on display at the Carbon County Museum. (I believe that’s another first, and hopefully the only time it happened.)

There are many other firsts: Yellowstone Park was the first nationally designated park, Devil’s Tower the first national monument, and the nation’s first ranger station was established 30 miles west of Cody, Wyoming, in 1903 in the Shoshone National Forest. Also, the first library system was established in Laramie County in 1886.

And last but certainly not least, the first woman governor, Nellie Tayloe Ross, was elected in 1925 and was later appointed by FDR to head the U.S. Mint, a position she held until 1953.

Wyoming Historical Trivia is on sale for 99 cents on Kindle and Nook and will be available in print before Christmas.

"Mystery We Write" Holiday Virtual Book Tour

by Jean Herny Mead

Earl Staggs wrote about the virtual holiday book tour a few weeks ago and we're currently in the middle of the tour, with great interviews, blog posts about writing including how our 15 mystery writers got their starts and why we write. There are also photos of where we work (our desk, messy or neat), book excerpts, and best of all we're giving away more than 60 mystery novels.

Blog visitors who leave comments at the individual sites are eligible to win novels from Earl Staggs, Tim Hallinan, J. Michael Orenduff, Marilyn Meredith, Anne K. Albert, Beth Anderson, Alice Duncan, John Daniel, M. M. Gornell, Wendy Gager, Jackie King, Jinx Schwartz, Pat Browning, Ron Benrey and me.

I’m giving away 14 Kindle or Nook books—one at each blog site each day--as well as three signed print copies of my Logan & Cassidy series novels at the conclusion of the tour. I would love to be eligible to win some of the great books offered by my fellow tour writers.

My tour schedule is listed at: "Mystery We Write" Holiday Tour along with links to all the other blog sites. There's also a slideshow of all our books on the site, created by our tour coordinator Anne K. Albert.

I’m appearing at Pat Browning's site today, talking about the unusual ways I've researched my books.

We wish you the happiest of holidays and hope to see you along the tour.

Developing Your Characters

by Jean Henry Mead

Some writers start with a setting, others with a theme. I’m one who begins with characters. But how do you breathe life into people who inhabit books to make them more than cardboard characters?

Characters have both inner and outer lives, according to Bharti Kirchner. I agree. Inner lives consist of beliefs and motivations while outer lives are your characters’ public personas. There are a number of techniques that can be used to reveal both.

Dialogue demonstrates a character’s personality, background and education. It also reveals how they feel about others. The following exchange is between my protagonists, Dana Logan and Sarah Cafferty, two 60-year amateur sleuths who are caught in an Arizona flash flood in Murder on the Interstate:

Sarah warned about the amount of water on the road: “We’re going to hydroplane.”
“Too much water for that.” Dana switched the headlights to low beam and drove forward. “Where the hell is the road?”
“Stay between the delineator posts. There’s one off to your left.”
“I see it. Where’s the next one?”
Dana heard a scraping sound and Sarah yelled, “You found it.”
Later, when their Hummer is washed onto a sand bar, Sarah says: “Thank you, Heavenly Mother. Thank, you—“
“We’re not out of danger yet. If it starts raining again, we’ll be washed away.”
“What can we do, Dana?”
“Pray for all you’re worth.”
“I asked that the power angels be sent to help us.”
“Good idea. Maybe they’ll fly us out of here.”

There’s obviously a difference in religious beliefs between the two women as well as emotions and cynicism.

Physical descriptions also help the reader to visualize characters. Dana and Sarah are as alike as Mutt and Jeff. Dana’s tall with auburn hair and is said to resemble the actress Gina Davis while Sarah is short and plump with curly blonde hair.

A character’s birth place also contributes to her persona. Sarah Cafferty grew up in rural Nebraska and spouts expressions such as: “He took off like a scalded cat.” Dana, on the other hand, is a native Californian, who is a little more sophisticated, and I’m sure readers wonder why they became best friends. By transplanting both women from their retirement village in the San Joaquin Valley, in A Village Shattered, to Wyoming in the second novel, Diary of Murder, both women have to learn to adjust to a new lifestyle and that helps to define their character.

When Your Publisher Dies and Orphans Your Book(s)

By Jean Henry Mead

The last thing a writer worries about when signing a publishing contract is “What if my publisher dies?” It happened to me in late July after I had repeatedly attempted to cancel my contract for nonpayment of royalties. The worst part was watching my book sales increase, knowing that I wasn’t getting paid for them.

My blog partner Ben Small offered advice and the Author’s Guild's legal department wrote the publisher a letter requesting a contract cancellation. The letter was ignored. A month later the publisher died and I have to admit to mixed emotions.

What can a writer do when faced with a defunct publishing company and three orphaned books? Although I notified Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble and Fictionwise, they were no in a hurry to take my books offline so that I could resell them. So I asked a small press publisher for advice and she helped by notifying people she knew at BN.com and Fictionwise, which promptly took my books down. We then went after Amazon. In the meantime, the publisher's former vice president sent out revisions of rights to all the writers involved, and also notified Amazon of the death of her former boss. Fortunately, the deceased publisher had no living relatives to contest the business closure, or prevent the writers from reselling their books. It could have happened.

Writers know how difficult it is to resell orphaned books, especially in the middle of a series, so I decided to form my own imprint, Medallion Books, and try indie publishing. I'm also running a series at my Mysterious Writers blog to learn how other indie publishers are faring. L.J. Sellers, who made a name for herself in independent publishing, was featured last month, and one of my Murderous Musings blog team members, Susan Santangelo, will appear for a week beginning tomorrow. Both women have done remarkably well and I hope to follow their examples.

I now have six books up at Amazon, a couple on Nook so far, and three in the print process with Create Space. I hope to have another children’s book finished in time for Christmas sales.

I could not have done it alone. My husband does the formatting, while I write and design book covers. He makes it happen. I love the freedom of creating my own books from start to finish, knowing I’ll receive my royalties on time, without sharing them with a publisher. I'm also able to keep track of online sales each day at both Amazon and B&N.

Although I’ve had ten royalty-paying publishers over the years, I don't plan to ever sign another contract. For writers who still do, make sure you’re not signing for the life of the copyright—as one of my proposed publishers expected me to do. Also, be sure there’s a clause that allows you to back out of your contract in the event that royalties are not paid within a specified period of time. And that you have the option to audit the publisher’s books, if and when you have reason to believe that your royalties have been withheld.

It's also a good idea to have a lawyer check your contract before you sign, or become a member of Author’s Guild, which will scrutinize the contract for you. The publishing industry is filled with pot holes that you need to circumvent whenever possible.

The Ancient Art of Face Reading

by Jean Henry Mead

Physiognomy or face reading was developed by the Chinese before the birth of Christ and has been practiced for more than 2,000 years as a branch of medicine to diagnose illnesses as well as determine a person's character. The reasoning behind the practice is that a person’s personality or inner vitality are closely related to his spirit and physical well being, according to author Timothy T. Mar, who wrote the book, Face Reading.

Face reading practicioners take many facial features into consideration before they determine a patient’s ailments, character, criminality or other behavior. The shapes of faces tell them one thing in conjunction with the size and shape of the eyes and other features. The more evenly proportioned, the better a person’s character. When a physiognomist determines that a face is strong, he means that the person has strength and inner vitality. But a crooked nose, uneven eyebrows or protruding ears can detract from the overall positive reading.

Persons with oblong faces are called aristocratic because most rulers and those in power usually have this shape of face. During the Roman era, some leaders and Kings hid their faces from the enemy so that their intentions could not be read.

The triangular shaped face with broad forehead and tapered chin generally denotes someone sensitive and a loner while the semi-triangular face with squared off chin is said to be more intelligent, sensitive, artistic and mellow.

The square face belongs to a rugged, masculine person with a temper. They’re usually slow thinkers and stubborn. Those with round faces and small noses are easy going and peaceful by nature.

Pracitioners first read the eyes which are the best indictators of a person’s health and character. Eyes that “glitter” indicate vitality and well being as well as a powerful personality. The ideal eyebrows are long, broad and elegant, according to Mar. Elegant brows indicate a person’s harmony with society and relationship with relatives while a drooping brow signifies a shy or cowardly nature. When the middle of eyelids droop slightly over the eye it’s considered a sign of maturity, especially if the person is between 30 and 40.

The nose occupies the epicenter of the face and the Chinese call an ideal nose the “lion nose” because it represents a strong and passionate nature. Such a person is usually successful and serves in high office. Physiognomists believe there is a relationship between the nose and lower brain development. Someone with a long nose usually has a conservative personality while a short-nosed person is apt to be more open-minded, optimistic and dislikes detail.

Another indicator of character is the mouth. Those with bow-shaped lips are said to be incapable of holding positions of importance while people with broad mouths and distinctly red lips are said to be capable of authority.

Also taken into consideration are the size and shapes of ears, broad or low foreheads, groves between noses and mouths, wrinkles, moles, scars and other facial defects. The physiognomist totals up many facial features (or detracts from the positive ones) before making a final determination.

I wonder if the fictional detective Charley Chan practiced the art of face reading while tracking down criminals?

Review--Escape: A Wyoming Historical Novel by Jean Henry Mead

Review by Jaden Terrell

Adventure, romance, and a glimpse into the lives of some of the West's most famous outlaws are hallmarks of Jean Henry Mead's Escape: A Wyoming Historical Novel. The book begins with the arrival of outlaws at the cabin where teenaged Andrea Bordeaux lives with her grandparents. Thinking quickly, Andrea's grandmother shears the girl's long blond hair and dresses her in a pair of her grandfather's overalls, transforming her into "Andy" and leading the outlaws to believe she's a lad.

The plan works--to a degree. Andrea's virtue is safe, at least for the moment, but the outlaws injure her grandparents and take "Andy" hostage. Uncertain of her grandparents' fate, Andy must use all her wits to survive and escape. When one of the outlaws, Billy, learns her secret, things seem hopeless, but he agrees to keep her secret. She comes to believe he can be redeemed.

During her ordeal, Andy meets vicious killers and gentleman outlaws, including the famous Butch Cassidy, who promises to let her return home after their next big robbery. But will he keep his promise?

Mead keeps the suspense high throughout the book, which is reminiscent of a Louis L'Amour western, rich with descriptions of frontier life and rugged terrain. The characters are multifaceted and the dialogue authentic. It's clear the author has done her research, which is seamlessly woven into the story. The epilogue, which ties up the loose ends and delves into the fates of Cassidy and his Wild Bunch, was one of my favorite parts of Escape, which is not only an entertaining read, but an informative one.

Mysterious Dogs

by Jean Henry Mead

Cats are usually associated with mystery novels, but dogs find their way into mine: from Bert, a retired police dog in Diary of Murder, to Miranda, an Australian Shepherd, who chews furniture in my first children’s novel, Mystery of Spider Mountain.

I’ve always had at least one canine in residence since Brenda, a small bulldog I shared with four younger brothers. The list grew to include a large variety of mixed breeds, one of them named Brillo because the lovable terrier resembled a scrubbing pad with legs. He once jumped with muddy feet into a car full of white-habited nuns, but that’s another (embarrassing) story.

Then there was Prince, a small mixed breed, who learned to dig under our backyard wooden fence to roam the neighborhood. In a matter of months there were a number of puppies in our area that closely resembled him. When I had him neutered, Prince literally disowned me for months.

For a while, we raised Shetland Sheep dogs. The Sheltie is a beautiful, hyper breed that resembles miniature black and white collies, which I’ve always longed to own. We then adopted C.J., whose kennel name was Countess Juanita de Sangria because she came from New Mexico’s Sangria Mountain area. A buff-colored cocker spaniel, she contracted cancer at the age of 12, and we drove her to the Colorado Veterinary Teaching Hospital every five weeks for chemotherapy. She did quite well for 18 months until we lost her. And as all pet owners know, it was heartbreaking.

We then adopted Mariah, an Australian Shepherd, who served as the model for Miranda, the Hamilton Kids’ furniture chewing dog in Spider Mountain. Mariah has an almost human quality about her. She’s the only dog who can out-stare me. Most canines will look away after five or six seconds, but Mariah can hold her stare for a full minute without blinking. It makes me wonder whether she’s an incarnated ancestor.

Dogs have distinct personalities and quirks of their own, which can be successfully incorporated into novels. Although Bert, my retired German Shepherd police dog, appears in the second novel of my Logan & Cafferty mystery suspense series, he’s only mentioned in my new release, Murder on the Interstate, because my two feisty 60-year-old women sleuths were visiting a friend with six cats. That could have caused considerable conflict but might have detracted from the book's theme of homegrown terroris

Then again, it may have added to it.

I plan to bail Bert out of the kennel in my fourth mystery novel, Magnets for Murder.

Murder on the Interstate Virtual Tour

by Jean Henry Mead

We just ended a great two-week RV vacation and are holed up six hours from home to wait out a late spring storm. My latest release, Murder on the Interstate, is due out tomorrow and I have two virtual book tours planned starting May 2 and ending August 14. I still have four articles to write and lots of packing and moving to do before the end of May because our house finally sold. By then I'll need another vacation.

I'm fortunate to have 33 hosts for my first tour, which runs through May 27. The second tour begins May 23 and is comprised of 13 authors who feature each another at their own sites for a week until August 14. It's a lot of work writing the blog articles and submitting to interviews, but it's also fun to connect with my readers.

I'll be giving away three copies of Murder on the Interstate in a drawing from among visitors to the sites who leave comments. So, if you're interested in a humorous mystery-suspense series featuring two 60-year-old feisty women sleuths traveling the country in their motorhome and discovering murder victims, stop by and leave a comment at the following sites:

May 2nd: http://booktoursandmore.blogspot.com/
May 3rd: http://www.broowaha.com/
May 4th: http://marilynmeredith.blogspot.com/
May 5th: http://rebecca2007.wordpress.com/
May 6th: http://www.pumpupyourbook.com/
May 9th: http://thebookconnectionccm.blogspot.com/
and http://livingwritingandotherstuff.blogspot.com/
May 10th: http://reviewfromhere.com/
May 11th: http://asthepagesturn.wordpress.com/

And many more.

My complete blog book schedule is available at: http://www.pumpupyourbook.com/2011/03/25/murder-on-the-interstate-virtual-book-tour-may-2011/

Writing a Children's Mystery Novel

by Jean Henry Mead

I considered writing an autobiographical children’s book for years before I finally sat down and wrote it. Solstice Publishing released it this week as Mystery of Spider Mountain and I’m well into the second book of the Hamilton Kids' mystery series.

Fiction is rooted in fact and my three protagonists spent their formative years at the foot of a large hill in southern California, as I did with four younger brothers. Because the hill was inhabited by trap door spiders and an occasional tarantula that had arrived on a banana boat from Central America, I called it Spider Mountain.

My brothers and I were close in age and and explored our "mountain" together. The apron was filled with tall, blue lupines which bloomed nearly year round, and halfway up the hill was Dead Man’s Tree. We called it that because a thick knotted rope hung from a limb that we swung on. At the end was a large loop. That prompted stories about horsethieves which we imagined had been hanged there.

A dirt road encircled the hill at three levels but was so chocked with rocks and clumps of weeds that even a bicycle would have had difficult passage. So we wondered how the people who lived at the summit were able to reach their home, and imagined everything from rock climbers to space ships and helicopters, although we’d never heard one in the area.

When I was twelve and old enough to babysit brothers who were nearly my own size, we climbed our mountain to spy on the mysterious house. What we found was a chain link fence restraining four large vicious-appearing dogs with mouths large enough to swallow a child. Or so we thought. It didn’t take us long to scramble back down the hill to our own house. And, of course, we never told our parents.

When I began to write, I wondered again who those people were and how they arrived at their hilltop home. The house itself was a mystery but I had to decide what kind of crime(s) the residents of the house had committed. And how the Hamilton kids would be able to bring them to justice. I then thought of the Ouija board we used to play with. That’s when the spirit Bagnomi materialized and talked to the kids via the board.

My four brothers had to be reduced to two to make the story manageable. Even so, they were as unmanageable as my own brothers had been, so their widowed grandmother came to live with them—as ours had done. However, our grandmother didn’t have bright red curly hair like Ronald McDonald, and wasn’t interested in finding a husband. Even children’s books need humor and the Hamilton Kids’ grandmother provides that and more, along with an adopted Australian Sheppard with a penchant for chewing furniture.

Writing for children has opened a new vista which I hope my young readers will enjoy as much as I enjoyed the writing. I'm well into the second novel in the series, The Ghost of Crimson Dawn, which takes place here in Wyoming, where the Hamilton Kids visit their Uncle Harry at his mountaintop ranch. There's a bit of autobiographical plotting in that book as well.