{"id":10847,"date":"2024-02-20T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-20T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10847"},"modified":"2024-02-19T20:43:44","modified_gmt":"2024-02-20T01:43:44","slug":"finding-your-author-niche","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=10847","title":{"rendered":"Finding Your Author Niche"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The anthology, Sherlock Holmes: A Year of Mystery 1885<\/a><\/em>, edited by Richard T. Ryan, is one of a series filling in the years 1881-1886, the period between the stories \u201cA Study in Scarlet\u201d and \u201cThe Reigate Squire\u201d when no Holmes cases were reported. This fallow period was interrupted only by \u201cThe Speckled Band\u201d (one of my favorites), set in 1883. Contemporary writers, not content to assume the duo spent those years twiddling their thumbs, have enthusiastically created adventures to fill in the gap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each A Year of Mystery<\/em> volume, published by Belanger Books, includes a dozen stories, one for each month, and even a bonus story or two from that year. Clearly, the Great Detective was capable of multitasking at a high level! The 1885 volume, which contains one of my stories, was published last December, and I asked some of my fellow authors how much experience they had with this very particular mystery genre. Turns out, a lot!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

George Gardner\u2019s story, \u201cThe Adventure of the Damaged Tomb,\u201d was his debut as a Holmes\/Watson pasticher, and three of the authors (including me) have had two or three published. But to demonstrate that the genre\u2019s well of inspiration is far from empty, five of the authors have published repeatedly in it and one\u2014David Marcum\u2014has published 118 short stories and two novels involving Holmes and Watson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Faulty Gallows\u201d by David Marcum<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s give Marcum\u2019s latest story, \u201cThe Faulty Gallows,\u201d a closer look. In endnotes, he tells how in real life John \u201cBabbacome\u201d Lee \u201cfamously survived three attempts to hang him\u201d for murdering his employer, and how James Berry, another real-life character, was the official executioner who tried and failed to execute him, repeatedly. Marcum provides pictures of both men, and Lee is dapper in his bowler hat. Berry looks unhappy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marcum did a beautiful job taking the raw facts of Lee\u2019s narrow escapes and fictionalizing them. Holmes is asked to involve himself in this fiasco by a mysterious \u201cacquaintance at Whitehall.\u201d This device gives him a plausible reason to investigate and allows Marcum to wrap the circumstances of the botched executions in a larger conspiracy that Holmes tumbles to. By the story\u2019s end, a bit remains unresolvable and, when pressed by Watson, Holmes asks for time. No too-neat-and-tidy ending here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Holmes fans will realize that the mystery man is no doubt Holmes\u2019s brother Mycroft, but since Watson hasn\u2019t met him yet, he\u2019s a cipher to the story\u2019s narrator. Says Marcum, \u201cMycroft is a useful tool in pastiches\u2014although as a strict Holmesian Chronologist, [I can\u2019t bring him] in too early.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Holmes is known for his brilliant deductions, yet \u201cthe story structures also allow for a lot of off-stage techniques to advance suddenly toward the story\u2019s conclusion,\u201d Marcum says. Contact with Mycroft, which doesn\u2019t have to be explained in detail, sometimes accomplishes that. Mycroft\u2019s murky Whitehall connections also can give some stories, like this one, a bigger frame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more about Marcum\u2019s Holmes addiction on his blog<\/a> or visit his Amazon author page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The anthology, Sherlock Holmes: A Year of Mystery 1885, edited by Richard T. Ryan, is one of a series filling in the years 1881-1886, the period between the stories \u201cA Study in Scarlet\u201d and \u201cThe Reigate Squire\u201d when no Holmes … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Sherlock Holmes and Watson are among the most enduring characters in literature. Even Holmes's mysterious brother Mycroft has a special place in writers' imaginations.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[440,1335,62,174,29],"tags":[2161,275],"class_list":["post-10847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","category-amateur-detective","category-authors","category-first-draft-blog","category-writing","tag-david-marcum","tag-sherlock-holmes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2OX","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10847"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10849,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10847\/revisions\/10849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}