The Seven Deadly Sins Sure Come in Handy

Leann Sweeney writes the Yellow Rose Mystery Series set in Texas and the Cats in Trouble Mystery Series set in South Carolina, both published by NAL/Obsidian.


Once I finish a book and it goes to the editor for that first read, my thoughts turn to the seven deadly sins. No, Tiger and I are not hooking up in Vegas, but I could make a case for him having committed all seven of those sins. I couldn't mention sins without mentioning him, could I? But this isn't about golf at all. It's about the secret. Not the book The Secret, the secret at the center of every mystery.

As soon as that manuscript goes to NYC, I begin thinking about the next plot, the next book. What will the secret be? I love the thinking part of starting a new novel because it makes me feel like a child again. I love to make stuff up. Thank goodness I found a profession where I'm encouraged to do so. (Otherwise I might be in jail.) Part of my process is to pull out those seven sins--wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy and gluttony—and ponder each one. What motive this time? What fun can I have with each of these sins? (Sins I have never, ever committed myself, mind you.)

You might think a few of these sins would be difficult to create an entire mystery around. But that's what so great about the vices. They are the basis for most, if not all, books. Think about it. I'll wait.

See what I mean? Wrath and greed may come to mind first when it comes to crime fiction, but sloth and gluttony can be about so many things. The challenge of coming up with something that hasn't been "done to death" (excuse the pun) is a test I fully embrace. And I must enjoy myself in the process, because if I don't, my readers won't enjoy themselves either. You only need turn to the Bible and the Book of Proverbs to come up with the best list ever for creating an intriguing plot. To quote via that wonder of wonders, Wikipedia, test out these plot teasers:

Haughty eyes
A lying tongue
Hands that shed innocent blood
A heart that devises wicked plots (uh oh ..am I in trouble?)
Feet that are swift to run into mischief
A deceitful witness that uttereth lies (don't you love those old "eth" verbs?)
Him that soweth discord among the brethren.

Isn't this great? A plethora of ideas in one small list.

I just agreed to a new contract for two more books in the Cats in Trouble Mystery Series and after a truly grueling rewrite of the book that comes out in May, The Cat, The Professor and The Poison, I came up with a plot, thanks to my "puruse the sins" technique involving a motive I do not believe I have used before—at least not as the big secret that pushes someone to murder. Am I going to tell you what that sin is? Your odds of guessing correctly are one in seven. But I won't be taking bets in Vegas. Apparently what happens there doesn't really stay there after all. Here's a hint: the working title is The Cat, The Lake and The Liar.

Leann Sweeney

Idle Threats

I was making the bed one morning, the television tuned to a morning program on a national station, when James Patterson’s voice implored me to buy his latest book or he would “kill Alex Cross.” Oh, really? You would? This advertisement from the thriller-meister has generated a great deal of talk on DorothyL, a listserv that I and many of my Stiletto brethren subscribe to. People fall firmly into two camps when it comes to expressing their opinions about this ad: brilliant versus schlocky. I think I’m somewhere in the middle.

The first thing I wondered is exactly how much does it cost to get thirty seconds worth of air time during “Good Morning, America”? I’m sure it’s more money than I have but I wonder nonetheless. Second, I wondered how many people actually believe Patterson. Is there a contingent of die-hard Patterson fans out there who would trudge to the bookstore (or to their computer keyboard) to order the book just because he said so? Obviously, Patterson is being tongue-in-cheek. But I’m curious to know how successful an ad like that is in generating sales.

I don’t know that I’ve ever read an Alex Cross novel, so I don’t know whether to be chagrined or not that he might travel to the great unknown in Patterson’s next novel. Is Alex Cross the guy that Morgan Freeman always plays in the movies? If so, please don’t kill him, Mr. Patterson. I love Morgan Freeman and want him to have work well into his 80’s, some 50 years after it is unacceptable for women to have a decent leading role.

Let’s remember that Patterson began in advertising, something that’s been pointed out several times on DorothyL. According to one of the posters—our friend and fellow mystery writer, Chris Grabenstein—the sign on Patterson’s door to his band of ad copywriters was “Startle me.” I actually have a friend who worked for him, and by all accounts, he was a master at the game. So it’s not surprising that he would pull out all of the stops to sell books, which got me wondering (once again…I do a lot of wondering), “Just how far would I go to sell a book?”

Conclusion? Not far.

People know what they like to read and they are not usually persuaded to go outside of their comfort zones, in my opinion. I think back to one of the first book signings I ever did, as the guest writer featured during our middle-school’s Barnes and Noble fundraiser. I sat, all alone, at a table in the middle of the store, smiling and trying not to look as uncomfortable as I felt. A woman approached me and asked me what kind of book “Murder 101” was. I gave her a rambling synopsis of the plot, and she took the book over to where she was sitting to look through it to see whether or not it was worth the twenty or so bucks B&N was charging for it on that particular day. She walked back to me a few minutes later, her face stern. She handed me back the book. “I don’t think I want to read this,” she said. And instead of screaming, “Buy this book or I will kill Alison Bergeron!” I bid her a nice day and sunk a little lower in my hard-backed chair.

I used to work in college textbook publishing and one of my jobs was to support our sales reps in the field by traveling with them and making sales calls. I have to say, I was pretty good at closing the deal. And I will admit I once used the old “baby needs a new pair of shoes” line to a professor who was considering one of our books. I was eight months pregnant at the time, and he was so surprised by my cheekiness that he ordered 150 copies of a $40.00 book on the spot. Yes, that’s $6000 worth of business in a five-minute call. All this to prove that when necessary, I can sell. But there’s something different when it’s a book that you wrote, that your blood, sweat, and tears went into, that came from your heart. The hard sell just doesn’t seem to apply.

All this to say that I applaud Mr. Patterson. I won’t buy his book (“I don’t think I want to read this”) but I will probably buy a copy for a family member for Christmas. Because in a thirty-second ad, Patterson piqued my interest. People obviously care enough about Alex Cross as a protagonist that killing him off would upset them greatly. And that makes me wonder.

“Final Exam” came out yesterday. If you like my kind of mysteries, I hope you’ll buy it. More than that, though, I hope you enjoy it.

And in the interest of blatant self-promotion, commonly called BSP on DorothyL, what I will do is offer an excerpt of “Final Exam” here at the Stiletto Gang on Friday. Please check back if you’re interested in finding out what kind of trouble Alison Bergeron gets herself into this time. Let’s just say it involves exploding toilets, drugs, aliases, and one very hot and bothered Crawford. Interested yet?

Maggie

A Wonderful Christmas Past

Years ago I belonged to a sorority--no, not the college kind, this one was social--whose primary purpose seemed to be having fun. We had once a week get-togethers and a party once a month at someone's house which our husbands were invited to. There was always a theme and we usually danced. We also had get-togethers with other sororities in our area, ones where we wore long dresses.

During this time I was a teacher at a pre-school for developmentally disabled kids.

It bothered me that our sorority didn't do any service projects, I'd never belonged to anything where we didn't do anything useful for anyone else. One of the consultants who worked with the kids at our school told me about a family with three kids, one developmentally disabled, and the father had lost his job and they had no money for Christmas.

I approached the sorority members, told them about the situation and proposed that we provide Christmas for this family. The women thought this was a great idea. We found out the ages of the children and everyone bought gifts. We also got a tree and decorated it. (This was before they sold all the pre-decorated phony trees.)

We gathered all the food needed for a Christmas dinner including homemade pies and some extra groceries too.

We loaded up the back of my station wagon (I always had station wagons, after all, we had five kids) and four of my sorority sisters went with me on delivery day. We located the address, an apartment house. A man was working on his car in front of one of the garages. We called out and asked if he knew this particular family. He said that was his family.

"Great, we have something for you."

He looked bewildered, but started helping us carry everything upstairs to their apartment. He opened the door and we brought everything in. The mom and kids stared at us wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

When we'd deposited everything, the man asked, "Who did this? Where did this all come from?"

One of the gals said, "You have heard of Santa Claus haven't you?"

We left giggling all the way down the stairs and on the drive back home. What a wonderful feeling that was and I didn't feel quite so bad about belonging to a sorority that's primary goal was having fun.

Marilyn
http://fictionforyou.com

The Search for Plots

Where do mystery plots come from? National news broadcasts, local newspapers, obscure blogs – they are all great resources for a mystery writer.

The following are some of the news bits that caught my eye recently.

A searcher dies: Robert Rines died at age 87. For 35 years he'd been spending his free time at Loch Ness looking for evidence of Nessie. As a biologist in addition to being a mystery writer, I've always been interested in the search for unknown species. I think Mr. Rines must have enjoyed the adventure and the thrill of the search; otherwise he would have give up the hunt years ago. Many books have been written with the theme of "the searcher." And many more will be.

A celebrity crashes his SUV: An expensive SUV driven by a sports celebrity strikes a fire hydrant and tree at the end of his driveway in the middle of the night. The air bags don't deploy. His wife uses a golf club to shatter the back windows and pulls her semiconscious husband out. Or at least that's the surface story. The next day reports of affairs fill the tabloid and mainstream news sources. Then the celebrity apologies for letting his family down and pulls out of scheduled events. Wouldn't be hard to pen a plot with this scenario.

A couple crashes a White House State Dinner: Had Evelyn David included an event like that in a mystery, readers would have howled, claiming it was unbelievable. Now we all know different. All the Secret Service agents, metal detectors and firepower in the world is sometimes not as effective as one strategically placed secretary with a guest list on a clipboard. The couple's totally inappropriate, even dangerous, actions have opened up all kinds of plot opportunities for writers who want to use the backdrop of the White House.

A murder trial in Italy: The American student studying in Italy is on trial for the murder of her housemate, a British student. An innocent, young American woman who is being mistreated by a foreign justice system? Or is she a monster who masterminded a sexual assault and bloody killing of another young woman? The jury just found her guilty and sentenced her to 26 years in prison. There's tons of material for a fictional mystery in this sad set of circumstances.

What kinds of non-fictional mysteries are you interested in? Which ones would you like to see used as the basis of a novel? Or do you tire of the ripped-straight-from-the-headlines, Law and Order type of scenarios and would rather not recognize the events when you read a mystery book? Is it cheating to base the story on real life and simply manipulate the ending you prefer? Or is all fair and game in the mystery biz?

Rhonda aka The Southern Half of Evelyn David

To All the Scrooges Out There...Bah Humbug!

by Susan McBride

You'd think that with the world in such turmoil people would start being nicer to each other, but it seems just the opposite. I don't know why civility seems such a rarity these days, but it is (had a nice rant with Maggie on Wednesday about this!). Is it because technology has made it unnecessary to deal with people face to face? Is it that profit has taken such precedence over people that "customer service" has become as extinct as "Made in the U.S.A."? Is it because rudeness has become so commonplace that it's pretty much acceptable? What the heck's going on, and how can we fix it?

During hard times, people are supposed to band together, aren't they? Instead of sounds of cooperation, all I hear is political sniping. I am so sick of seeing grown-ups on TV, lying and arguing and acting like misbehaving children (paging SuperNanny!). How can we expect our kids to act polite if there aren't any role models of politeness to follow?

I'm feeling strangely nostaglic for my growing-up years. We moved around a lot when I was a kid, but every new neighborhood we landed in had a similar sense of community. You knew all the families on your street and probably several more streets around you. Neighbors looked out for neighbors, and any families with kids became close friends. We shared dinners, played kickball or softball or Red Rover, and raced our bikes up and down the streets. I had a cute older boy once offer me a cigarette while hiding behind a bush during flashlight tag, and I realized after one puff that I never wanted a cigarette to touch my lips again! When I fell off the slide and landed on my head during recess (brilliantly trying to go down standing up in tennis shoes), my mom couldn't be reached. So Mrs. Butler next-door picked me up and let me lay on her couch and watch TV, eating Charleston Chews, until my mom got home hours later. It was awesome.

As I grew up and moved around a few times as an adult, I felt more of a sense of isolation in my neighborhoods. There's more distance between people, and everyone's so wary (perhaps, rightly so, considering the headlines on the evening news). Could be that all this fear and distance has made people less practiced in common courtesies. I'm rather stunned when someone opens a door for me these days (and it's usually an older man). I actually try to open doors for people whenever I can, just to freak them out.

And the uncivility doesn't stop with pedestrians. It's almost worse when people get in their cars. I dread having to go anywhere as no one seems to obey traffic rules anymore. Red lights don't mean "stop" for most. In St. Louis, if you have any sense, you wait about three beats for cars to keep going through a red light at an intersection before you can go on the green. Say the guy in the far left lane decides he needs to be in the far right lane. No problem. He just cuts across three lanes of traffic to make his exit. It's ridiculous. I don't say the f-word in public and only in private when I'm very frustrated; but somehow when I'm out running errands, it pops out of my mouth a lot. Were drivers always this bad? Or is it more of the rudeness thing? The "I don't give a s**t about anyone else but myself" attitude that seems so prevalent?

I know, I know. It's the holiday season. Everything should be all pretty lights and bows, but I can't seem to stop stumbling over Scrooges everywhere I go. Now that I've ranted, I'm going to say "poo poo to mean people" (did I do that right, Marian?). I am going to stick a smile on my face even if I'm pinned against the Wii display during crowded shopping days. I plan to say, "Happy Holidays," open doors, and be as pleasant as can be no matter how many Scrooges I encounter. If I'm nice then maybe it'll make someone else feel nicer, too, and so on and so on, like that old shampoo commercial. Pretty soon it'll catch on like the swine flu and become an epidemic! (And, no, I haven't been dipping into the loaded eggnog--yet--but that does sound mighty, um, nice!)

The Puck Does not Stop Here!

Nikki Bonanni has worked in the fitness industry for almost 20 years. In the 90’s she began as a Fitness Director at a small health club in Ithaca, NY, eventually becoming the general manager. While at that small club Nikki joined forces with a friend to open a personal training and consulting business which thrived for 6 years with over a dozen trainers working in both the gym and traveling to private homes. She is now an Exercise Physiologist in a new health club that is co-owned with a medical center, and is a part-time faculty member teaching at Ithaca College. In her spare time, she is working on her first mystery novel.

I am a true believer in doing things that make you happy. Trusting that if you want it bad enough there is always a way to make it happen. Realistically everyone needs to make a living and pay the bills. I am lucky enough to have a career that is also fun—I am an Exercise Physiologist in a health club that sits on an inlet to Cayuga Lake. Granted there are long hours and sometimes weekends, but the benefits far outweigh that. I get to see the water and wildlife, work with interesting people helping them become healthier, be active throughout my workday….and wear sneakers to work!

Work isn’t the only thing that defines you, and I have many other interests. One that has been a part of my life since I was a kid is mysteries. From Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys to Agatha Christie I have always been an avid reader. For many years I also professed that I wanted to be a mystery writer. Thanks to Carolyn Hart and The Christie Caper I became aware of this real life conference called Malice Domestic.

One day years later I was training a client who was also a mystery reader and mentioned Malice. Sure enough she said she’d love to go with me. There it was, my first opportunity to become part of a different world. That led to investigating other conferences, and although it took awhile to get there I was starting to realize one of my dreams. For the past two years I’ve gone to a number of these GREAT events. I have also started to write, and have been overwhelmed with the generosity, help and friendship of other authors. If I had not taken that first step this thing that is now a big part of my life would never have happened.

As I said, I have a lot of interests, so there was still something that I loved that was missing. Sports. Throughout high school and college I played several varsity team sports. When you join the adult world, lack of time and opportunity often lead to athletes ‘retiring’.

One of my clients happened to be a goalie on a women’s recreational hockey team. Since field hockey was one of my sports I expressed an interest in maybe one day trying ice hockey. She invited me to an open hockey, and even though I told her I could only skate forward she insisted I go play. Needless to say it was a bit of a disaster! However, after a friend nicely told me I could not play hockey until I learned to skate, I decided that I did indeed want to do it.

It was a harsh reality for me to not be able to have the ability to do a particular sport; I am generally at least adept at most athletic endeavors. Skating was not so. It was beginner lessons for me, and even the little kid version of ‘wiggle your butt’ could not propel me skating backwards—I just ground holes in the ice.

If you want it badly enough, you can do it! At age 40 I really wanted to be good enough to play on a team, and after lessons, beginner women’s hockey and then spring league, I have done it now playing on two teams and having a blast!

So, since I have not actually published a book (yet), I do have a giveaway. Anyone that posts something they have done to follow their dream will be entered into a drawing for a signed copy of Hank Phillippi Ryan’s Prime Time along with a cool tote bag! Thanks Hank!!

Nikki Bonnani

So You Want to Be in Pictures?

I read an article in the New York Times this weekend in which the writer estimated that in any given year, ten thousand reality-show contestants (actors?) grace our television screens. Ten thousand? I think that’s a conservative estimate.

As you faithful Stiletto readers know, I have partaken of a few reality shows myself. My son and I enjoy Survivor immensely and look forward to sitting together under a blanket (it’s almost winter here and I refuse to put up the heat until absolutely necessary) and criticizing each contestant’s game play. Then we talk about how long we would last on the show. (Me? One episode. Him? He’d win.) And I admit, I do enjoy the “Real Housewives of Whatever City They’re In” if only to bask in the glory that is my own lack of self-absorption and over-spending. The entire family enjoys The Amazing Race and have a new-found love for the Harlem Globetrotters after watching Big Easy and Flight Time run a very nice race against some very nasty competitors. We were sorry to see them go this past Sunday night because Big Easy couldn’t rearrange five letters to spell “FRANZ.” Oh, well.

By the way, if I ever make the Harlem Globetrotters, I would like my stage name to be “Paperback Writer.” I know—not original. But it’s better than “Can’t Make a Foul Shot” which is probably more appropriate.

All kidding aside, I have never had an urge to be a reality-show participant, but from what I glean from the Times article, I’m in the minority. That’s why it wasn’t a shock in one sense to read about the State Dinner crashers, a former Redskins cheerleader (if the wife is to be believed—no one on the Redskins’ cheerleading staff remembers her) and her equally fame-hungry husband. On what planet is it acceptable to crash a dinner at the White House? I guess if you’re dying to be recognized or to exploit your fifteen minutes of fame, it would be this planet.

There is so much wrong with this scenario that I hardly know where to begin. Breach of security? Check. Possible international incident? Check. Complete lack of class? Double check. In my humble opinion, I hope they are roasted like my Thanksgiving turkey when they sit before a select group of representatives tomorrow. And then, I hope they go to jail.

You want to be on television? Shoot a video and stick it on You Tube. Then, tell all of your friends to watch it and help you make it go “viral.” I assure you, some nightly news program will pick it up and televise it. Then you can live your lifelong dream of seeing yourself on the tube and we can all go back to our daily lives, secure in the knowledge that the Secret Service can focus on their job of protecting the President from the true crazies, not just the ones who think it would be a hoot to get on tv.

I wish I had something more cogent to say about these two knuckleheads, but as I am sitting here writing this, I realize that their actions raise more questions than I can answer in six hundred words. What has become of our country that people are so focused on achieving some kind of fame—however dubious—that they would put the President of the United States in jeopardy, not to mention his family and guests? They are an embarrassment to our country. I know that heads are going to roll for this stunt—and I’m not saying that they shouldn’t—from members of the Secret Service to select White House staff. I wonder how that makes the party crashers feel. You got your fifteen minutes of fame, but someone is going to lose their job during the holidays.

Well done, White House party-crashing wannabe reality stars. You’re famous. Or infamous…not that you care.

Thoughts?

Maggie Barbieri

Giving Something of Ourselves

Today a new member of our church challenged us to give something of ourselves for Christmas. His proposal is that those who feel led to help put on a dinner for those at the church or in town who have no where else to go for Christmas.

Usually we give the fixings for a Christmas dinner for those who ask. We always do the same at Thanksgiving. This is something different though, this is a real commitment because not only do some of us need to cook, he suggested that there be greeters at the door, volunteers to transport people who might need a ride, someone to hand out name tags, and that we sit and visit with people we don't know. It also means giving up Christmas day at home.

As I sat in the pew thinking about it, I realized that our family, those who actually come to the house for the gift-giving, do so on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day we have the big dinner at one o'clock, the same time as this church dinner is being proposed. So--I could cook a turkey, make a big container of dressing and another of yams and take it to the church.

Since my son's family live next door and always come for Christmas dinner, I wasn't sure how they would react to this--but they were sitting on the same pew and heard the same proposal. After church we went out to eat together and I said, "I think I'm going to cook a turkey and some of the trimmings for the Christmas dinner."

My daughter-in-law said, "I think I'd like to be a part of that too. We can all go over to the church and have our dinner there. My granddaughter said, "I could do the name tags."

This is quite an undertaking as our church is really small. This morning I bet we only had about 30 people there--some were still off somewhere for the Thanksgiving holiday. Our little town is interesting--there are lots of rich retirees and there are a lot of down and outers, many of them live in what used to be a tuberculosis hospital that's been turned into low income housing for the elderly and handicapped. I suspect that's where a lot of people will come from.

You know what though, I bet this will turn out to be something we'll all love being a part of--and if it doesn't work out like we're hoping, well, we'll have tried.

And that's how the Christmas season is beginning in my neck of the woods--or should I say in the foothills of the Sierra.

Marilyn