Just the facts, ma’am!

by Lois Winston

Years ago I made a huge geographical error in Talk Gertie to Me, my first published novel. Even though the manuscript had been read by members of my critique group, my agent, my acquiring editor, and the line and copy editors at the publishing house, no one caught the fact that I’d set the Mississippi River on the wrong side of Iowa. It took a reader to point the error out to me within weeks of the book’s release.

His comment came as a shock because I really do remember pulling the Atlas off my bookshelf and checking the location of the river. This was before Google Maps, and unfortunately, the Atlas was small, and my eyesight isn’t what it used to be, thanks to so many hours each day staring at a computer screen. The font was way too small to read. I saw a line bisecting the map of the United States and running down into the Gulf of Mexico. I assumed it was the Mississippi. It wasn’t. I should have noticed that what I thought was the river didn’t come anywhere near the state of Mississippi. I was mortified that I’d made such a dumb mistake and upset that no one had caught it before the book went to press.

Ever since then, I’ve checked and double-checked all the facts and every piece of research I do for my books, especially when it comes to geography. Since that first published book (which has since been corrected for the e-book release,) I’ve also had the good fortune to work with editors who took their responsibilities more seriously and always double-check my research. Readers notice when you make mistakes, and they let you know about them. Few things are more disheartening than receiving an email from a reader who points out you need a remedial course in geography!

However, I’ve come to realize that novel authors are held to a much higher standard than scriptwriters, who apparently have even less of a grasp on geography than I do. Over the past few years I’ve come across countless geographical errors in television shows.

The first time I became aware of this was watching House. That show was set in the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Medical Center in New Jersey. I live in New Jersey. I know the Princeton and Plainsboro areas. And I know that no one would ever hop a plane to get from there to Baltimore for a conference, as House and Stacy did in one episode. It’s only a 2-1/2 hour drive. When you consider the distance to either the Philadelphia or Newark airport and the time needed to get through security, you could be in Baltimore before the plane took off. Why didn’t the writers know this? Unlike me, they certainly had Google Maps available to them at the time.

If you’re going to set a story in a location you don’t know well or even at all, you need to learn about the area. Yet time and again I see television shows where the writers don’t even bother to check out the basics. I recently watched an episode of a show set in Philadelphia. The series, now cancelled, was actually filmed in Rhode Island, and maybe that’s the problem because except for some of the establishing shots in the opening credits and some scenes that take place in the suburbs, there’s nothing remotely similar to Philadelphia in the show’s exterior scenes.

In the last episode of the show, they gave a location where a witness could be found. The two streets they mentioned don’t intersect; they’re actually the same street, the name changing after the street crosses over into another county. On top of that, the area is quite urban, and the show portrayed the home as a quaint cape cod on a bucolic street. I went to college a block from that supposed location. Trust me, there’s nothing bucolic about it!

In that same episode, the camera zooms in on a piece of paper with the protagonist’s address. The writers have her living on 14th Street. The problem, though, is that there is no 14th Street in Philadelphia. What should be 14th Street is called Broad Street. It’s the main intersection that runs the length of the city. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of the City of Brotherly Love would be aware of this. Apparently, the show’s writers never took a field trip to the city where they were setting their show.

Someone pointed out to me that perhaps the writers did this deliberately so as not to show an actual address. If that were the case, they could have simply given the building a number that didn’t exist. Few people would be aware of that, but many people know there’s no 14th Street in Philadelphia.

Little things like this bother me. They pull me from the story. So I completely understand why that reader years ago was annoyed that I’d placed the Mississippi on the wrong end of his state. I learned my lesson and work hard not to make mistakes in my books. Maybe scriptwriters don’t have the luxury of time to research carefully, or maybe they figure viewers won’t notice or care. Probably most TV viewers don’t unless they happen to live in the city or state where the story takes place.

Do errors like this in books, movies, and television shows bother you, or am I being too picky? Do they pull you from the story? Do you continue to read authors or watch shows that make mistakes because the story or characters are so intriguing, or do you give up and move on to other authors and shows?

***

Award-winning author Lois Winston writes the critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series featuring magazine crafts editor and reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack. Lois is also published in women’s fiction, romance, romantic suspense, and non-fiction under her own name and her Emma Carlyle pen name. In addition, she’s an award-winning crafts and needlework designer and an agent with the Ashley Grayson Literary Agency. Visit Lois at http://www.loiswinston.com, visit Emma at http://www.emmacarlyle.com, and visit Anastasia at the Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers character blog, www.anastasiapollack.blogspot.com.

Holidays, Food, and Character Traits

Thanksgiving’s in a few days, for Americans. It’s like the "om nom nom" starter’s pistol for the season that lasts through the beginning of January. This is why I finally joined a gym.

I’m a pretty good cook, and I like working in the kitchen. I’ve been saying for years that the first Thanksgiving after my maternal grandmother passed, her spirit touched my hands and gave me her gravy-making skills. Watching that smooth, rich, brown gravy come together exactly as planned was a beautiful moment.

Some of my characters are good cooks. In my first (trunked awaiting rewrite) book, the horror plot was relieved by lots of good cooking. In my Falcone and Driscoll series, not as much, although I do manage to work in how to make homemade Sicilian pizza.

Other hobbies of mine, like knitting and playing musical instruments, aren’t as universal as cooking and eating. After all, Patricia Wentworth created the best detective-who-knits in Miss Silver. Is there a musician detective? I don’t recall one.

I’ve learned a few things as my characters have informed me of their talents and quirks. I know the techniques of cello playing, how to research someone’s ancestry, online RPGs, navel piercing, and all-natural foods.

Have you ever been so interested in a book’s MC that you wanted to learn to do what they do? In my own case, I got so irritated at Miss Silver’s continual “knitting in the Continental manner” that I taught myself that method. (I knit a lot faster now, and two-color knitting is a breeze.) Have you ever researched something for a book and ended up incorporating the skill into your real life?

I’ll be happy to share my recipes with anyone. And then we can head to the gym together.

TV OR NOT TV?

Recently I was discussing TV watching habits with a group of fellow authors. Some never watch TV, some seldom watch, some occasionally watch, and others are so addicted that they watch even while writing. Those of us who park ourselves in front of the TV do so for a variety of reasons: relaxation, escapism, addiction (Dancing with the Stars fell into that category for many,) and research.

I heard that groan! Yes, I know authors should never use TV for research because TV is notorious for playing footloose and fancy-free with facts. Just ask anyone who works in a forensics lab. What happens on CSI is about as far from the truth as it gets. However, there’s definitive research that deals with facts, and then there’s structural research that deals with the art of plot and characterization. TV is bad for the first, great for the second.

I’ll admit, when it comes to certain shows, I’m a Tvholic. I get hooked on one or two new shows each season. Right now my DVR is set to record the following in no particular order of importance:

· Lost

· House

· Bones

· Castle

· Desperate Housewives

· Law & Order SVU

· The Good Wife

· In Plain Sight

· Burn Notice

When I looked at this list, I noticed it was quite telling for not only what was included but what wasn’t. Not a single sit-com or reality show. I find that sit-coms are mostly stale jokes and predictable situations. Or the premise is a one-trick pony that starts out great but after a few episodes, the show brings yawns of boredom and finds me reaching for the remote.

As for reality TV shows, I find them exploitative, voyeuristic, an insult to my intelligence, and yet another way writers get the shaft.

About a year or two ago, I read about a new reality TV show in production. All the contestants were terminally ill. Even though the story appeared in a major daily newspaper and not The Onion, I hope the information was someone’s idea of a sick joke and not an actual show in production. I never heard anything more about it, so if it was an actual show, someone had the good sense to cancel it before it aired.

Did you know that the reason there are so many reality programs on TV is because they’re so cheap to produce? No Writers Guild members to pay for quality scripts. No Actors Guild members to pay for performances. I boycott shows that prevent hardworking, talented professionals from making a decent living. It’s my small way of sticking it to “the man.”

But getting back to my list of favorite programs, even though they include everything from evening soap operas to fantasies to cop shows, they all have one or more elements in common. They are, not surprisingly, the same elements that make for good books: great hooks, intricately structured plot arcs, engaging voices, and complex characters.

Many people believe TV watching is a waste of time, that it stifles creativity and kills brain cells. I rationalize my TV habit by studying the shows I watch in much the same way I study how my favorite authors write page-turning novels. That’s the cool thing about being an author. Watching TV helps me do my job better. At least, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Say Cheese!

Cricket McRae

This is the new cover for my fourth Sophie Mae Reynolds Home Crafting Mystery. It will be released in the spring of 2010. My cover designer, Lisa Novak, has done it again. Simple, sensuous, appealing yet with a hint of danger. A knife. Broken glass. Spots of vivid red.

This time around I got to kill someone by bashing them over the head with a bottle of heavy cream. Thank you, Raconteurs, for the song Carolina Drama. Inspiration comes in all forms.

As you can see from the cover, Something Borrowed, Something Bleu features cheese making as the backdrop to the mystery. I started making cheese about fifteen years ago, mostly jack and cheddar. It took months to properly age, and I had to keep an eye on humidity and temperature during that process. When I started writing this book I dove into it again, this time focusing on fresh cheeses like mozzarella, paneer, queso fresco, ricotta and fromage blanc.

I love cheese. Lots of people love cheese, it turns out. And lo and behold, there is a very good reason for this. Sure there are the awesome, often intense, flavors. The textures. The melty goodness. The way it accents pasta, eggs and fruit. But there's also the PEA.

Phenylethylamine, or PEA, is the love drug. The one that makes us feel giddy and goofy, clouds our judgment and in many ways makes us downright stoopid. Some studies have concluded PEA affects the human brain like cocaine. Brain scans of people in the head-over-heels stage of falling in love resemble those of psychotics. It's strong stuff.

Chocolate contains PEA. That's one of the (many) reasons chocolate makes us happy. But get a load of this: Cheese contains more PEA than chocolate. One study I ran across said ten times more.

Yea, baby. That's what I'm talking about.

Oh, oh, catch that buzz.
Cheese is the drug I'm thinkin' of.

And PEA isn't the only drug cheese contains, either. I grew up thinking penicillin came from bread mold. Not so, I eventually learned. Those charcoal blue streaks in bleu cheeses? Yep. Penicillin.

Now, I doubt eating a hunk of bleu cheese would cure an infection, but I'd sure be willing to give it a try.

But wait! There's more!

Cheese made from organic raw milk from grass fed cows contains high amounts of CLAs, or conjugated linoleic acids. These are omega 6 fatty acids vital to health. They're potent anticarginogens, may prevent atherosclerosis, ease inflammation, and even adjust metabolism to increase weight loss. And CLA from animal sources is the easiest for human digestion to access.

That's right. Cheese can be good for your heart and help you lose weight. How crazy is THAT? Plus, it makes you happy, happy, happy..

No wonder we love it!

on the hunt

The other day, the bill for my website came due, and while I was in the web site control panel to update the payment info, I spent some time checking out the Usage Statistics for my site. I haven't looked at them in forever and so I spent a while seeing what's what. And it turns out that when I got down into the Search String section—the words folks type into Google or Yahoo when they're searching for something—I discovered a magical world of wonder and delight.

Here are the search strings people have used to find my web site since the start of the New Year (and please note, some of the words are naughty, at least in what I guess is the intended context):

• bill cameron (okay, this one makes sense)
• bill cameron soccer (still makes sense, though my site has exactly zero soccer information on it)
• bure (huh?)
• cop looking for 6 c cell maglite (Interesting. Weird, but interesting.)
• kept woman (okay, not a search string I'd likely put into a search engine, but at least I have a short story on my site called "kept woman.")
• she lets me touch her vagina (uh, double huh?)

That last one was particularly eye opening. What an odd phrase to type into Google. I mean, "cop looking for 6 c cell maglite" makes a certain kind of sense. Maybe you're a cop. Maybe you need a new MagLite, and maybe you want a 6 C-cell version, and since you're a cop you want the search engine to know you're a cop in case maybe there's like a cop-friendly source for C-cell MagLites. Works for me.

But. Um. That last one? All I can say is if it's you, email me. I have some questions. (One of them is, "Who actually lets you touch her there anyway, bub?" Most likely answer: no one.)

Now, if you type "she lets me touch her vagina" into Google, a link to my site appears on page 2 (as of this writing). What's amusing to me is the link is to my story "On the Road to Find Out," which, I confess, does have all those words in it, though not in that particular order and certainly not all in a row like that. And, I swear, none are used in a fashion that would in a million years elicit prurient interest. I hope.

Needless to say, after a few minutes with the January 2008 Search Strings, I felt like a kid in a candy shop. The candy shop of random Google searches, sure, but sugary sweet and delightful nonetheless. So I started looking back in the statistics for past months to see what else people were searching for when they found me. It was wonderful.

Now, sure, there are lotsa unsurprising search strings. Variations on "cameron" and "bill", which will find you not only me (and in fact, not usually me), but also a dance instructor, a prolific blogger in Great Britain, a guitarist, and links to the late and much beloved CBC broadcaster of the same name, among others.

But once I got past boring old "bill cameron," things started cooking. For instance, I was surprised to learn there seems to be a deep and abiding interest out there on the interwebs in "kept women." These strings showed up often:

• well kept woman
• are there really kept women
• looking to be a kept woman (who isn't?)
• how to be a kept woman (there's a manual?)
• kept woman find I want (Yoda has unexpected tastes)
• kept woman salary (They get a salary?)

Another string that got my attention was:

• what if she rejects me

Oh, lord. How forlorn is that? I mean, if you're entering that into Google, I feel for ya.

Some other favorites:

• nylon feet shoeless
• bill cameron chain gang (Aiieeee!)
• lost dog reviews touch wood (They do?)
• good looking woman hump (I have a feeling I know where that one was going.)
• short mysteries for fifth graders (I can assure you, I didn't even write short mysteries for fifth graders when I was IN fifth grade.)
• author of book about lost dog (That would be me. Among others. As it happens.)
• settings of the man and his dog (sandwiches of the ham and his cheese)
• cameron mysties (a deep-fried treat available from some crazy vendor down on the boardwalk)
• dipsey doodle poodle (Yes, there is an actual page on my site with those precise words on it)
• find out about a kid named jt (I would like to find out about that kid myself. I mean, seriously. What's that kid up to, anyway?)

Sadly for many searchers, my site features a serious lack of imagery, though I do have a short video featuring shoeless nylon-clad feet. I also have a picture of a lizard, not to be confused with the "lost trouser snake" of one mysterious search query. (I don't want to know how one loses his trouser snake.)

Ultimately, if you've got a website, marvelous entertainment can be found just perusing the visitor statistics log to see what search strings lead to your site. I mean, come on, how else are you going to find out if "sex in the frontseat of a car" finds you?

Heartbreak, Silliness, Bamboo

by Nina Wright, author of the
Whiskey Mattimoe mysteries

Writers are list makers and note-takers. Many of us won't leave the house without a micro-cassette recorder and camera, or higher-tech equivalent, in case we have a whim or inspiration that might lead to a best-selling novel. Or a solution to the messed-up draft we're writing right now.

We eavesdrop shamelessly, surf the net endlessly, and mutely "what-if?" every situation or comment that captures our attention in the course of our mundane lives. My own copious lists fill several very fat three-ring binders and include names, notions, quotations, and possible titles.

Although choosing a title is generally one of the last details of the book-writing process, more often done by editors than authors, several of my novels were born from phrases that sounded like future titles and became my working titles.

My favorite current inspiration is a three-word phrase I found while surfing the net for something entirely unrelated. Heartbreak, Silliness, Bamboo leapt out at me as the perfect title for...well, my life. Not that I'll ever write nonfiction or even fiction that looks like my daily grind. Still, I love that non sequitur perhaps because once upon a time, in the midst of a crisis, I moved to the tropics hoping for a ridiculously cinematic fresh start. It was a fiasco but great fiction fodder.

Here's what I propose: Share one or two of your current possible titles and tell us what inspired them or where they're leading you or, at the very least, what genre they suggest to you. Alternatively, pick one of mine and tell us what you think a novel by this title might be about.

There's a small chance, of course, that your ideas will inspire someone to write something commercially viable. But you can steal from this post, too. Let's have fun.

My Short List:

Deep Regards from the Dark Side of the Moon
The Width of Oblivion
P.S. You Were Right
The Virgin Widower
Spumoni Days
I Am My Own Twin
Hoosier Triangle
The Inverters
Welcome to UNFISH BAY
Now Read Clouds
Dead Men’s Ties
This Is Not the Middle-Aged Ladies Club
The Great Unslept

In stores now: Whiskey and Tonic

by Nina Wright

The Wigs Did It

by Nina Wright, author of the Whiskey Mattimoe Mysteries

Confession: I wore wigs to school.

At age fifteen, I discovered that the easy way to be somebody different every single day was to build a wig collection that included all available colors and styles…and then be brazen enough to wear 'em. On some level I must have been hoping that my fellow students wouldn’t recognize me. Or would want to meet the Real Me, whoever that was. Although I wouldn’t have admitted it, most days I wished I was the cheerleader rather than the artistic loner. True, I knew how to be funny, and that helped. But I was dramatically intense. I had to be; my life was hugely misunderstood. To underscore that, I dressed as if I couldn’t possibly belong to my conservative middle-class family. Despite my strict mother and the school dress code, I managed to look outlandish. I wore the most make-up and the most eccentric accessories I could find. And wigs. A different one every day.

Little did I know that my Wig Phase—which lasted about six months—was my preparation for careers on both the stage and page. Wearing an ash-blonde shoulder-length flip one day, an auburn shag the next, and a frosted pixie-cut the day after that no doubt served as dress rehearsals for characters I would later play or write.

In time I discovered that theatre and literature express a basic human desire: “Get me out of my own life!” We all want to know what it’s like to be somebody else. I’m not saying we’re ready to trade lives, but we would like a taste of somebody else's. We wonder what it's like to be that green-eyed redhead driving the Maserati. Or that sleek brunette with the black belt in karate. Or even (if I'm lucky) that bumbling, love-sick Michigan Realtor with the runaway Afghan hound. We want to safely, vicariously live pieces of those lives...on the pages of a mystery novel, on the stage or screen, or--in my adolescence--from under a wig.

My burning desire to be someone other than who I really was at age fifteen fueled my drive to become an actor and writer. Put another way, I wanted to keep wearing wigs. Sometimes, as a professional actor, I was required to wear one. Happy day! Now, as a writer, I own a vast metaphorical wig collection, and I don a different one while imagining each point-of-view character. For Easter Hutton, my teen protagonist in Homefree and Sensitive (Flux/Llewellyn), I wear a spiky flat-black number. For Whiskey Mattimoe, amateur sleuth, I wear a perpetually disheveled curly brown one. I never owned either of those wigs in high school, but now in my adult years, I spend many hours imagining life with such hair. And the myriad troubles that come with it.

Although my books feature lots of male characters, some of whom I'd no doubt fall in love (or lust) with if they were real, I have yet to write an entire book from a man's point of view. My unpublished starter novel was a thriller alternately told by a stockbroker and his wife caught in a high-stakes foreign adoption scam. Lacking a metaphorical wig for the husband narrator, I channeled the voices of a couple flesh-and-blood guys. The character that emerged was compelling and fun to write. I'd discovered non-wig ways to get inside a person's soul.

Still, when I think about what launched my creative careers, there’s no question: The wigs did it. Thanks, Mom, for letting me win that battle. You were right, of course; I looked ridiculous, especially as a platinum blonde. But, hey, I was just doing my homework.

Mojitos, Sting Rays & Glass Eyeballs

by Candy Calvert

Research is a cool perk for mystery writers, granting us license for all sorts of activities that might otherwise be viewed as “wasting time”--or, perhaps simply bizarre. And, because I’m the author of the funny & romantic Darcy Cavanaugh Cruise Mystery Series, my particular research requires me to dress in sequins, sip Mojitos and Chicken Dance in shipboard discos across the globe--very grueling, but I am dedicated. And I’ve learned some things:

1) Even if a Newfoundland Country Band begs you to join them onstage (and the cafe crowd waves lobster carcasses in encouragement), no one is ever drunk enough not to notice that you can’t sing. There’s a Simon Cowell everywhere.

3) Dancing the limbo atop a jet-powered catamaran requires balance. And rum.

4) Though mussels, three varieties of caviar, and raw salmon sashimi sounds like a “book-worthy,” appetizer combo, writing time is severely curtailed when you spend most of the next afternoon in a Bridgetown, Barbados lavatory.

And perhaps my most boggling discovery is that truth IS stranger than fiction.

For my upcoming release, MAI TAI to MURDER, I traveled to the Caribbean and participated in a “Sting Ray Adventure” on Grand Cayman Island. The following scene excerpt was part of my draft submitted to Midnight Ink--approximately one week prior to the tragedy involving Steve Irwin:


I treaded water and peered through the face-mask once again at the creature below me: slate gray, flat as a pancake, big raised eyes, pearly white underside . . . tail like a possum on steroids. But, the good part of this dubious adventure was that Marie was as wild with enthusiasm as that weirdo Crocodile Hunter guy. And had completely forgotten that she was pissed at me for involving her in the so-called investigation.

“Ooh, crikey,” she said, eyes bugging through her face mask as she lifted her head, “look at that big boy down there, Darc’. Bet he’s three feet across.”

While that bit of dialogue is gone, I still have goose bumps when I remember it--and count my lucky stars that my particular stingrays were having a good day.

Next research? Taxidermy maybe. For an idea I have about an Alaskan Inside Passage mystery. Hey, how much trouble can I get into juggling Glass Eyeballs? And how about you--where does your research take you?


Welcome to InkSpot and please c’mon back--we’re going to have fun here!

Candy
www.candycalvert.com
http://ccalvert.livejournal.com/