Myths about Writers & Writing

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A few months ago, Emily Harstone wrote an entertaining post “14 Myths about Writers” for Authors Publish. “False assumptions, clichés, and myths” abound when it comes to the writing profession. The half-empty glass of bourbon on the desk, a pall of cigarette smoke. How many of these myths do you believe? Here are some of my favorites t:

1. The Muse – Although sometimes a writer is suddenly struck by a great idea, bringing it into reality (words on the page) doesn’t happen solely by inspiration. She quotes Pablo Picasso, “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.”

2. The Day Job Is the Enemy – yes, a job can take time away from the writing (as well as put food on the table), but it also exposes how people relate to each other, what the dynamics of a workplace are, and maybe even immerses the writer with content background that feeds the writing. Alafair Burke writes compelling courtroom dramas because she is a former Deputy District Attorney and teaches criminal law and procedure. Work experience informed the office environment for my suspense novel Architect of Courage, and readers who know the world of architecture found the interactions completely believable.

3. Writers are eccentric. Harstone says people believe writers “can say strange things and get away with it.” I actually have never gotten away with it. My family makes sure of that. Writers aren’t hermits, either, though sometimes when cranking away at a particularly troublesome juncture in a work-in-progress, we may shut the office door and put the phone on mute.

4. Writers have perfect grammar and never make mistakes. One read of a contemporary novel published by an editor-free small press will disabuse you of that idea. Even bigger publishers, sometimes. A thriller I read last year, published by a company claiming six editorial staff, was burdened by careless phrases like “about him and I.” Shudder.

5. “Everyone has a story, they just have to get it out.” Harstone says this is one of the most enduring of the myths. It isn’t just telling the story, it’s doing it well. Learning how to write takes time. I’d always done a lot of writing on-the-job, but I was writing fact-based reports and policy papers. When I started writing fiction seriously, I had to learn to write all over again.

6. Writers don’t “just make it up.” This isn’t in Harstone’s list, but I hear it a lot. It’s as if the author has total freedom. So not true. A story has to seem real to readers; characters must act believably (note: not “rationally”); plots have to make sense; descriptions of places and actions have to make sense; and it all has to fit together to fulfill the story’s purpose. Even fantasy and science fiction, in which the author is dealing with a completely unfamiliar world, actions and descriptions follow an internally consistent path. “World-building” it’s called, and it’s a lot of work!

And, apropos of the photo at the top of this post, it reminded me of a favorite line from Marge Piercy’s poem, “In Praise of Joe”: “All my books are written with your ink.”

A Twisted Love Story

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If only the main characters of Samantha Downing’s new psychological suspense thriller, A Twisted Love Story, would tell the truth once in a while, a lot of their problems would be solved and maybe even avoided. Wes Harmon and Ivy Banks have been an on-again, off-again couple for almost a decade—ever since college—and their breakups are every bit as passionate as their reunions. But if they each harbor secrets, they also share a growing list of them. And those shared secrets put them on a slippery path leading straight to prison.

Early on, Wes meets the couple’s main antagonist, Karen Colglazier. She’s a detective with the Sex Crimes Unit of Fair Valley, California, the featureless mid-sized town where Wes and Ivy live. It seems Ivy has accused him of stalking her and described to Colglazier the ominous notes, presents—including a box of half-eaten chocolates—and pictures, she’s been receiving. Nothing against the law, technically. Not so far, but Colglazier believes a visit from the police often puts a stop to such low-level harassment. Wes denies doing any of it, but then he would, wouldn’t he?

Ivy, fierce and funny, has perhaps the weakest impulse control you’ll ever encounter in fiction, and Wes believes that reporting the alleged stalking was her way of getting his attention. In the past, she’s used some dramatic, even damaging, ways to do that. He’s obviously on Ivy’s mind because when he shows up at her apartment the night of Colglazier’s visit, she gives every indication she was expecting him. The relationship, heavily burdened with the baggage of past mistakes, is on again.

Detective Colglazier is far from convinced by Ivy’s new forgiving attitude toward Wes. She believes Ivy’s denials are further evidence of how afraid and beaten down she is. Her prominent blind spot may be in the wrong place in this instance, but her instinct that more is going on here than meets the eye is correct. Wes and Ivy may seem doomed to keep reenacting their breakups and reconciliations, but it’s Colglazier’s doggedness that creates the book’s tension. Can they ever be free of their past mistakes without being free of each other? If you like thrillers involving dangerous secrets and struggling relationships, this may be a good book for you.

Samantha Downing, born in California, has made a specialty of psychological suspense since her successful 2019 debut novel, My Lovely Wife.

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Two Movies to Watch For

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A Haunting in Venice
Kenneth Branagh’s third film outing as Belgian detective Hercule Poirot is certainly loaded with stylish touches (trailer). A dark and stormy night, water everywhere. A gloomy palazzo where a Halloween party for orphans is staged. A crashing chandelier. Masked gondoliers. A psychic invited in the hope she can communicate with a former opera star’s dead daughter. Directed by Branagh and written by Michael Green.

Oh, and a houseful of suspects. Branagh has made a third try at getting right the mustache which prompted so many cackles in Murder on the Orient Express. This one is . . . interesting. Layers. No sign of the scar mentioned in Death on the Nile as the reason for growing the thing in the first place. Although the first two movies hewed closer to the original Agatha Christie novel, this story based on her novel Hallowe’en Party, has strayed off into territory of its own.

Super supporting cast—Tina Fey as mystery writer Ariadne Oliver who inveigles Poirot into investigating the medium; Kelly Reilly as the opera singer; Michelle Yeoh as the psychic; and the brilliant Camille Cottin as the housekeeper. (You may remember Cottin as the star theatrical agent in the French comedy series, Call My Agent.) And, you may recognize Jude Hill as the boy who played the lead in Branagh’s Belfast. Here he plays the 12-year-old son of a PTSD-afflicted doctor, played by Jamie Dornan, his father in Belfast too.

All you’ll miss if you wait for Haunting to stream is the scenery. A Gothic pall overlays the story, but the plot itself is a tad weak. Not mysterious enough for a mystery and not scary enough for horror. Christie’s original must have been shocking, though, because it’s the only one of her books in which a child was the murder victim. Not here. Here it’s Poirot who almost becomes the victim of apple-bobbing. Not great, but you don’t leave the theater feeling bludgeoned by sound effects, either.

Rotten Tomatoes critics’ rating: 76%; audiences: 78%.

Theater Camp
While the movies about kids’ summer camps have worn their jokes thin as tissue-paper already, don’t let that discourage you from seeing this fresh take on the genre from directors Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman (trailer). It stars Tony award-winner Ben Platt (Dear Evan Hansen), Molly Gordon as loyal camp counselors and Noah Galvin as tech support, plus an ensemble of hammy, misfit campers.

The long-time owner of a theater camp in the Adirondacks (it’s Camp AdirondACTS) falls ill and is unable to carry on. Her son (Jimmy Tatro), who has no feeling for theater, kids, or camp takes over. He fancies himself a finance genius, which seems in his mind to consist of writing himself many inspiring post-its. Can the counselors save the day?

Fun and refreshing, it’s what you’d call a “small movie,” and since it’s already probably too late to see it on the Big Screen, Hulu is streaming it.

Rotten Tomatoes critics’ rating: 85%; audiences: 80%.

What Makes a Fiction Writer? Jo Nesbø

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Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbø recently gave The Guardian a rundown of the books he counts among his greatest influences. His dad grew up in New York, so the household included a wealth of books by America authors, which exposed him to early favorites Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn –“food for the imagination for a kid like me.” With Tom Sawyer, he found his first murder mystery.

(Note that Huckleberry Finn is number 33 on the American Library Association’s list of books most frequently challenged in libraries and schools from 2010-2019.)

As a teenager, Nesbø’s perception about what literature can and should deal with evolved, in part due to reading Jean Genet’s classic, The Thief’s Journal. He says he knew he wanted to be a writer after reading some gritty works—On the Road by Jack Kerouac and Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski—which may have inspired some of the noir strains in Nesbø’s own writing, especially the Detective Harry Hole series (the only works of his I’ve read).

What a big debt most successful writers owe their early inluencers! Like me, you may be surprised when self-proclaimed authors say that they “don’t read,” or that they don’t read in the genre they want to write in. As a friend has said, “reading is like breathing in; writing is like breathing out.” Writing requires reading. Nesbø endorses this notion, even saying that “writing is a result of reading, like making music is a result of listening to music.” He calls it a social reflex, the way people tell stories around the dinner table, or the campfire, or in the foxhole. Storytelling was a strong tradition in the southern United States, which could be why so many great storytellers have southern roots.

Now that Nesbø is older and an acclaimed writer himself, some authors no longer hold appeal (Hemingway), though he’s still making discoveries (Joseph Roth’s The Radetzky March) and has returned to some authors with new appreciation—he cites his fellow Norwegian Henrik Ibsen, (whose play, An Enemy of the People, is one of my favorites). Currently, he’s reading Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind, which would seem to be feeding the same impulse that made him think about what literature should deal with. It will be interesting to see if some of Haidt’s ideas about how people make moral judgments find their way into Nesbø’s fiction.

Nesbø is the popular author of bestselling crime thrillers like The Snowman and The Son, has a new horror novel out later this week, The Night House, available for pre-order. Tagline: When the voices call, don’t answer.

Image: By Elena Torre – Flickr: Jo Nesbo, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19747762

Deep Roots by Sung J. Woo

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Deep Roots is an entertaining soft-boiled PI story, second so far in a series by Sung J. Woo that features Korean American detective Siobhan O’Brien. If the name and the ethnicity seem at odds, it’s because Siobhan was adopted by an Irish-Norwegian couple in Minnesota, as was her African American brother, Sven.

O’Brien inherited a private investigation business from her deceased boss (whom she misses), and a former client suggested billionaire Philip Ahn might benefit from her help. Ahn’s illustrious Korean lineage traces back to the late 1500s. At least. His estate—Woodford—is on a San Juan Island he owns in the far northwest United States, near the Canadian border.

Ahn wants Siobhan to come to Woodford to perform a delicate task. Now over 80, Ahn has been married three times. These alliances have produced three daughters and one son, Duke, a college student. If something happens to Ahn, Duke, the youngest of his children, will take over the businesses, something it is immediately obvious the young man is unprepared to do, intellectually or temperamentally.

Ahn, his three wives, Duke, and his daughters and their partners, along with two grandchildren, all live at Woodford together. If you’re familiar with the Zhan Yimou’s wonderful movie, Raise the Red Lantern, which Woo cites as an inspiration, you’ll be alert to the desperate rivalries and other difficulties enforced spousal proximity can engender. Siobhan’s principal contact in the family is Ahn’s daughter Lady Mary. You won’t go far wrong if you keep in mind the elegant and self-contained Lady Mary of Downton Abbey—another source Woo credits as contributing to his early ideas.

The issue Ahn wants Siobhan to resolve is Duke’s identity. He makes the rather extraordinary statement that the boy “is not who he purports to be.” If Duke were booted from the line of succession, though, which mother, and which daughter (or grandchild) would take his place? Thus, a lot is riding not only on what Siobhan discovers, but how she goes about discovering it.

Siobhan can summon ‘SiobhanDrone’ to lead her to any remote corner of the estate as she goes about interviewing family members. SiobhanDrone also will bring her anything she wants (under two pounds), etc. The support system and technology at Woodford is over-the-top, but if you loosen your grip on reality just a bit, it’s at least almost plausible and a lot of fun!

Told by Siobhan, the story depends for its success on how engaging she is as a character. I liked her a lot—her wit, her wits, her ability to say the wrong thing and move on, and her strong desire to do the right thing. Once Philip Ahn disappears and is presumed dead, her investigation has multibillion-dollar consequences for everyone in the family.

There’s a brief secondary plot involving her brother Sven and an unlucky business venture that isn’t really needed, and the setting of the climactic moments truly stretches the imagination, but on the whole, the characters are so nicely built out and act in ways so consistent with their personalities you will play right into Soo’s capable hands.

Raise the Red Lantern – Find ways to see it here.

Reaching across the Black-White Divide

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Two Virginia women—one Black, one White—working on their family histories made a serendipitous discovery and the connection that developed between them was much stronger than this 21st century mutual interest. Betty Kilby Baldwin’s ancestors were enslaved by the Kilby family, and Phoebe Kilby’s ancestors were the enslavers. How they met, how they came to terms with the past, and even more important, how they have become a model of racial reconciliation is an inspiring story. They told it in the book they wrote together, Cousins, subject of a discussion sponsored by the Library of Virginia earlier this week.

The power of their story arises in part from what remarkable individuals they are. Together, they’re even more so. Betty grew up outside Front Royal, Virginia. In 1954, when the U.S. Supreme Court mandated school integration in Brown vs. Board of Education, little changed at the schools in Warren County. The local school for Black children ended after the seventh grade. After that, they could attend a regional high school established for Blacks that was an hour away. Betty’s older brother was sent there and boarded during the week. After a year of that commute, her father found a closer school—only a half-hour away—for his two oldest sons, but the dilapidated bus the district provided meant service was erratic.

All the while, of course, there was a White high school in the county. Betty and her family made history, along with the families of more than twenty other Black eighth graders by insisting their children be allowed to attend the local Warren County High School. Betty became the lead plaintiff in a court case. Next came bureaucratic foot-dragging, then threats. But they persevered.

The commonwealth of Virginia retaliated against their efforts, in Warren County and elsewhere, with the Massive Resistance Laws and began closing schools rather than integrating them. As a result, 12,700 Virginia children, Black and White, were locked out of a public education. Eventually, of course, Virginia had to comply with federal law. Betty got her education, became a business executive, wrote an autobiography, and received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Shenandoah University.

Phoebe’s journey was quite different. Growing up in a White Baltimore neighborhood with professional parents, she had a career as a consultant on urban and environmental planning. After 9/11, she began to question the wisdom of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Waiting for business meeting with an official of Eastern Mennonite University, she learned the school offered courses in Peacebuilding, Conflict Transformation, and Restorative Justice. Maybe these courses could teach her to be a more effective advocate for peace. This educational process took Phoebe on a long and meaningful journey. When it came to understanding her family’s slave-owning past, she had skills in reconciliation.

Because of their experiences and education and their compassionate approach to the difficult issue of enslavement, after Betty and Phoebe met, they gradually developed a close bond. They work together in the Coming to the Table project, a nationwide initiative with many local affiliates attempting to create a more just and truthful society.

As Betty said, “We’re about the future, not the past.” Pretending slavery didn’t exist isn’t the answer; it only papers over a wound that, without light and air, cannot heal. As Betty wrote in Cousins, “We can’t change the past. All we can do is learn from it and make sure the mistakes of the past aren’t repeated.”

In need of an inspiring story? This is one.

(Almost) Lost to History

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If we think about the pieces of the past that are “lost to history,” we likely think of events and places and people from decades ago. If you follow this blog, you’ll know of my enthusiasm for genealogy, so the past lives of many people in my family become vague and irretrievable only when I hit the 1500 and 1600’s (like my ancestor’s 1657 death, which was considered so suspicious the sheriff convened an inquest).

That in mind, it may come as a surprise that barely fifty years ago—in 1973, when the Beatles were still a group—a massive fire near St. Louis, Missouri, destroyed millions of records of U.S. Army personnel from both world wars and other 20th century conflicts. At the time, the federal government preserved a single copy of the Official Military Personnel File (OPMF) of every person who served. You may know how difficult it can be to pry information out of veterans—very often they simply “don’t want to talk about it.” When their descendants get bitten by the family history bug, these records are a way in.

At least they were. But, after the fire, 80 percent of them—17,517,490—personnel records were gone. In her article for Wired magazine, “Soldiers Stories Lost,” author Megan Greenwell quotes archivist Terry Cook: “Archives are constructed memories about the past, about history, heritage, and culture, about personal roots and familial connections, and about who we are as human beings.” The fire left a big hole in that memory.

What followed has been a massive and ongoing effort by the National Archives to save everything it can. It first had to dry the records, soaked by the days-long efforts of 42 local fire departments to quench the fire. It has had to fight mold. Some documents merely singed, some were utterly lost, and some would have to be kept in special storage forever. When staff members receive a request for information, if it is for one of the 17.5 million burned records, they first determine whether any record at all remains, any bit of the original. If anything can be retrieved, they’ve become expert in handling it, scanning it, and sending it to the requester. If all else fails, an infrared camera may detect ink patterns on a sheet that looks thoroughly blackened.

Although it may seem that the Archives efforts have been painfully slow, ironically, time has been on its side. Technological advances, like that infrared camera, didn’t exist until recently. Had they hurried the job, the opportunity to use it would have been foregone.

With the precise vision offered by hindsight, the building could have been better protected, a few trash can fires could have been investigated more thoroughly, electrical problems could have been corrected, the design could have included a sprinkler system and firewalls. Eventually, a careless smoker confessed the fire may have been his fault, but the extent of damage was such that the authorities concluded it’s impossible to pinpoint a cause.

What a relief it must have been when, in 2011, the staff and records moved into a new, much more fireproof facility, a tribute to their dedication in continuing this laborious work into a sixth decade!

Is Peak True Crime in the Rearview?

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In 2014, the 13-episode podcast Serial investigated the murder of a Maryland teenager and “electrified group chats, provided rich loam for conspiracy theories, and turned hordes of millennials into experts on cell towers,” says Katy Waldman, a New Yorker staff writer. Somehow the genre convinces people, ordinary citizens, that they can know what and who are behind a crime. As a result, in a number of recent cases, investigators have been swamped by amateur detectives and wild theories.

Earlier this year, Waldman reviewed a book questioning the public’s preoccupation with true crime—podcasts, tv shows, movies, and books. Waldman’s review centered on Rebecca Makkai’s 2023 novel, I Have Some Questions for You, primarily a murder mystery set at a prestigious boarding school, which also critiques true crime on three counts, “exploiting real people for entertainment, chasing gore rather than studying systemic problems, and objectifying victims,” especially young white women who are pretty and rich.

Is the popularity of participatory and armchair crime investigation “the thrill of conjuring monsters to despise” as Waldman suggests? Or another example of “the numbing, almost hallucinatory pervasiveness of violence against women,” and “how greedily such stories are consumed”?

About a third of podcast listeners listen to true crime, but only last week, in the Washington Post, Hope Corrigan reported on people quitting the genre altogether. Corrigan opens her article with the story of a young woman who realized she was becoming overwhelmed by anxiety and paranoia, which she attributed to a “near constant consumption of true crime.” Those who quit this preoccupation report improvements in their mental state and sleep.

What seems to be changing now, Corrigan says, is how “some fans, and even podcast hosts, grapple with heightened anxiety and qualms over exploitation of victims,” and profiting from someone’s murder. Families of victims are speaking against the shows. A victim of a non-fatal attack said she “would rather get stabbed again than have TikTok users descend like vultures on my social media.”

Not unexpectedly, the popularity of the genre has inspired some tasteless merch, including a doormat that reads, “Crime Shows Have Taught Me Unexpected Visitors are Sketchy.” That may have started out as a poor joke, but recent tragedies suggest quite a few people may actually feel that way.

True crime tales may be most valuable when they reveal problems in the system that can be corrected. In the hands of a “capable creator,” stories of real crimes can reveal a lot about how the justice system works or doesn’t work, can demonstrate how social class and race affect crime and punishment, and can give voice to the voiceless. In less skilled hands, negative effects may predominate.

Professor Jean Murley, who studies the cultural impact of true crime, cites The Red Parts by Maggie Nelson, as one of her favorite books in the genre. This memoir and meditation from 2007 deals with one of the Ann Arbor murders of 1967-69, which occurred when I was living there. I read Nelson’s book several years ago and was surprised at how much of what I was sure I knew was simply wrong. Several novels I’ve read in recent years have considered the impact on investigations of social media piling on—notably New Zealand author Paul Cleave’s The Quiet Ones and The Pain Tourist. Unfortunately, such fictional accounts reflect actual events in society, where social media “suspects” become targets of vigilantism

Come with Me by Erin Flanagan

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In the new psychological thriller Come with Me by Erin Flanagan (cover pictured), a woman, put simply, is forced to grow up. She hasn’t realized she needed to until circumstances make her come to terms with her responsibilities. Taking charge of your own life, when you’re accustomed to letting others make the important decisions for you, isn’t easy. In her case, not doing it might prove deadly.

Gwen thinks she has what she’s always wanted, a devoted husband, a lovely daughter, a nice life in Boulder, Colorado. The tiny cracks are only at the edges, and at least she’s far from the confines of Dayton, Ohio, where she grew up.

Once, just out of college she did briefly strike out on her own with a four-month internship at a Dayton media company. While the other two interns paired up as leader and acolyte, Gwen stayed outside their circle, preoccupied with her upcoming wedding.

Ten years later, but early in the story, her husband Todd has a fatal heart attack, leaving Gwen bereft. His death isn’t the only blow. Solely in charge of their finances, Todd has sunk all the couple’s money into his start-up business and run up huge debts. Gwen now has no husband, no money, no house, and no job experience. She’s forced to move back to Dayton into the home of her increasingly debilitated, prickly mother.

One lucky thing, though. Online research reveals her fellow intern from a decade earlier, Nicola, the leader in their little trio, is still at the company, and, better yet, is still a leader. She’s moved up smartly in the organization. When Gwen calls her to explain her plight, Nicola starts throwing out lifelines.

If you have ever had a manipulative friend, if you’ve learned the hard way that favors often come with strings attached, and if you recognize the signs someone is seeking power and control, you will wish fervently that Gwen were more aware. But even she has limits and a mother’s instincts for danger. Watching her complete trust in Nicola crumble ever so gradually is one of the chief pleasures of this story. And, while we might wish it would happen sooner, that’s not who Gwen is.

The story is focused pretty tightly on a small cast of women: Gwen, her daughter, her mother, and, of course Nicola. In a few interspersed chapters, Nicola’s own difficult upbringing. By the time of the internship, Nicola has developed five rules for living and Gwen knows them well: Don’t let anyone make you feel small; know your friends (that’s a biggie for Gwen); trust your instincts (ditto); never look back; and truth, not facts.

Author Erin Flanagan lives in Dayton, Ohio, and writes about life in the town with great authenticity. She is also a professor of English at Wright State University in Dayton and won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for her debut novel, Deer Season, which I thought was wonderful—complex, well imagined, indelible characters.

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What’s Happening in Your Back Yard?

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Is your local newspaper thinner-than-ever? Is it mostly advertisements, and those mostly for health care? Does your local paper even still exist? More than 20 percent of US newspapers have closed their doors in the past decade.

We hear a lot about food deserts, but what about news deserts? The competing newspapers in large cities used to keep each other on their reportorial and editorial toes, but bigger cities today generally have only one daily paper—or none. Coverage of local issues has diminished. And, in truth, readership has declined sharply. That isn’t only because citizens (like me!) prefer to get at least some of their news online, but by publishers’ business decisions. National and international news comes from the wire services, local news is almost non-existent. One in five Americans lacks a source of local news.

A ray of hope, then, in the coalition of 22 charitable foundations that has made a five-year, $500 million commitment to an initiative called Press Forward to help news organizations report on their communities. The effort is spearheaded by the MacArthur Foundation, and its president, John Palfrey said that the country is losing a newspaper every week, and “It’s hard to have a democracy when you don’t have good local news. When you lose credible news sources, misinformation and disinformation swoop in.”

According to recent research from Northwestern University, communities that don’t have a strong print or digital news organization see declining voter participation and increasing corruption, due to the loss of the watchdog role.

The business case for local news will still be hard to implement successfully. Local media may be helped by proposal sin Congress and in seven states to give local news operations various tax credits and incentives, but innovative financing built on some mix of revenue sources will be needed and may not always succeed.