INKSPOT NEWS - April 21, 2012

This afternoon, Beth Groundwater will be on a "Fooling the Reader Fairly" panel at the Pikes Peak Writers Conference at the Colorado Springs Marriott Hotel, 5580 Tech Center Drive, Colorado Springs, CO 80919. Following the panel, she'll sign copies of her books in the conference bookstore.

On Sunday, April 22nd from 1-3 PM, Jennifer Harlow and Alan Orloff, among others, will be reading from their latest novels at Kensington Celebrates The International Day of the Book. 3786 Howard Ave, Kensington MD.

On Wednesday, April 25th from 5:30 – 8:30 PM, Beth Groundwater will dine with the Chesapeake Bay Writers and talk about "Series Writing for the Organizationally Challenged" at the Rivers Inn Restaurant, 8106 Yacht Haven Rd, Gloucester Point, VA 23062. She will autograph copies of her books afterward.

From Friday through Sunday, April 27-29, a number of Midnight Ink authors will appear at the Malice Domestic Conference at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, One Bethesda Metro Center (7400 Wisconsin Ave.), Bethesda, MD 20814. Their panel topics and times are listed below, and they will sign copies of their books during the signing periods after their panels.

Lois Winston and Alan Orloff will be two of 42 authors taking part in the Malice Go Round 10:00-11:30 AM, Friday, April 27th.

Alan Orloff and Maggie Sefton: "Capitol Crimes: All Politics Is Deadly", 9:40 AM, Saturday, April 28th; signing at 11:35 AM.

Jennifer Harlow and Cricket McRae: "Witches & Zombies & Ghosts, Oh, My!: Paranormal Mystery", 10:40 AM, Saturday, April 28th: signing 11:35 AM.

Beth Groundwater: "Three Strikes, You're Dead: Sports-Related Mysteries", 1:30 PM, Saturday, April 28th, moderated by Alan Orloff; signing at 4:20 PM.

Lois Winston and Deborah Sharp: "Elvis and the Commies: Sidekicks Who Provide Comic Relief", 2:30 PM, Saturday, April 28th; signing at 4:20 PM.

Jessie Chandler: "They Love Lucy: If Lucy Ricardo Were A Sleuth" Sunday, April 29th 8:45 AM.

Kathleen Ernst: "The New Nick and Noras: Mixing Romance and Murder," Sunday, April 29th, 9:45 AM.

Splat!

Cricket McRae

You would think on a blog written by mystery authors, I’d be talking blood spatter with a title like that.

Nope. Sorry.

Lately I’ve been refining my workshop on getting to know your characters better. It consists of nine ways to dig deeper when developing protagonists, antagonists and the secondary folks who populate fiction. The last time I taught this workshop I was reminded of a screenwriting intensive I took from Stewart Stern in 2006.

Stern is the soul-sounding writer of, among other things, Rebel Without a Cause, Rachel Rachel and the teleplay for Sybil. He wrote old-school style – no Vogler or McKee outlining how stories ought to work (though I bet he was familiar with Aristotle’s Poetics). In the intensive, he shared with us the impetus behind his genius.

He called it going through splat.

In fact, there is a documentary about his life, writing, and war (he fought in the Battle of the Bulge), called Going Through Splat: The Life and Work of Stewart Stern.

And here is an interview with him.

Splat was his way of talking about the difficult, psyche-scraping process of discovering something about ourselves that we have always avoided facing. In doing so, we are able to give that same gift to our characters. Protagonists in particular need to do that which they have always avoided in order to grow. 

Splat comes from wounds in the back story of a character. They do not have to be huge dramatic wounds – abuse, death of a parent, or great tragedy. But Stern maintained that there needs to be a point of connection between our protagonists’ back stories and our own. That connection may not be obvious to others, but we know it’s there.

Splat is facing the thing that stands in our way in our lives. Facing that thing creates hope. We may deprive ourselves, or hurt ourselves to avoid dealing with it, but in the end it is necessary. Stern maintained, “Courage is the price that life charges for peace.”

Splat is “being skinless in order to communicate,” to really tell the story. Your art lies in your own experience. Your fantasy about facing something you want to avoid is nourishing to others.

Do the thing you don’t want to do, to understand what that’s like, so you can pass that knowledge on. The mission of an artist “is to give to their audience one single moment in which they can glimpse their own capacity for greatness.”

So does all that sound like a bunch of hooey to you? While it resonates deeply with me, I think it does depend on what kind of story you’re telling. Applying the idea of splat to the lighter fare some of us write could defeat the purpose of providing, say, humorous escape. On the other hand, having that dimension of character even in a cozy provides a welcome depth – as long as it’s applied with a feather touch.

As a writer, do you dig deep, uncomfortably deep, to grant your characters life? As a reader, do you enjoy it when a writer does this?

Inkspot News - August 27, 2011

Here's news about Midnight Ink authors.



Once Upon a Romance wrote a great review of ROBIN ALLEN's clean, humorous amateur sleuth mystery, If You Can't Stand the Heat.

"[Poppy's] theories and questions are interesting, keeping the reader turning the pages...cozy and sweet with a definite savory bite to it."

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CRICKET MCRAE's first book in the Home Crafting mystery series, Lye in Wait, is free on the Kindle and Nook until the end of August.

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Juliet Kincaid wrote a great review of BETH GROUNDWATER's Deadly Currents.

"Gorgeous setting...A thrilling start...An engaging protagonist...Impeccable plotting..."

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