Month: April 2025

A Contrarian View of Cozies

by Miko Johnston

A diva actress infuriates everyone with her demands. A rich businessman takes pride, even joy, out of snookering his customers. A domineering tycoon sets ultimatums for his relatives lest they be cut out of the will. They’re spoiled, stingy, slick, or just plain mean, and the next thing you know, they’ve been murdered. News spreads, often through a small town filled with quirky folks, and soon a person with no experience in criminology (beyond, perhaps, reading or writing mystery novels, or selling them in their charming bookshop) takes an interest in the murder and decides to investigate. They may not have access to the minutiae of crime scene investigations or forensic reports, but thanks to a police force with little skill or interest in solving the mystery, they unmask the perpetrator.

Welcome to the world of cozy mysteries, where life can be pleasant, eccentric, and even humorous in the face of death. Where someone’s humdrum existence can be invigorated by a murder.

A sub-genre of cozies takes crime more seriously, dealing with social issues such as addiction, abuse, homelessness, and trafficking, however peripherally. Others feature amateur sleuths who partner with the real investigators – police detectives – sometimes literally; many have spouses on the force.

Bearing those exceptions in mind, please don’t hate me for what I’m about to say – I do not, and will not, read cozy mysteries that involve murder, for one simple reason: the punishment rarely fits the crime.

People kill or get killed for a variety of reasons.  Some killings are justified, as in self-defense or on the battlefield. And don’t confuse the broader legal term, homicide, with murder, as the former includes the accidental and the justifiable killing of another. The law defines murder as a deliberate act, targeting a person with the “intent to kill,” “cause grievous bodily harm,” or “a depraved indifference to human life”. This does not sound very “cozy” to me. Nor does killing someone simply because they’re not nice, or did something mean-spirited or even ruinous (short of murder) sound justifiable.

Some cozy murders occur “off the page”. I’ll grant the more grisly details of murder can be the exception to the “show, don’t tell” rule,  but even so a murder has been committed. I’ve also heard cozy murders described as bloodless, or even “painless”, but is there such a thing? Any police officer who’s been to a crime scene, or EMT who tried unsuccessfully to save the victim, will tell you NO. Most poisons cause pain, convulsions and organ collapse. And what about other methods, such as strangulation, drowning and suffocation? I feel miserable when I’m congested with a cold. I can’t accept being deprived of oxygen as anything less than cruel and unusual. Even if the crime is violent, such as a gunshot, the description sidesteps the gory details. Really? Please tell me how a gunshot wound wouldn’t be gruesome to an average person. And don’t get me started on humorous murder mysteries. I’ve seen farces that involve a dead body where the death occurred from natural causes, or an accident due to the victim’s stupidity, silly but harmless. However, a murder victim’s body crosses the line for me.

I have two other reasons for not reading cozies. I lived in New York during the crime-riddled seventies. I knew two people who had dear ones murdered. A co-worker’s boyfriend was shot to death in a case of mistaken identity, and a gang of robbers murdered my friend’s nineteen-year-old cousin as he was unloading a delivery truck. Fifty years may have passed, but I still recall the anguish in their faces, the tremble in their voices when they told me what happened. They never witnessed the crime in progress, nor saw the bloody crime scene, but from the moment the police notified them, their lives changed. Forever.

I get it. A mystery can be enjoyable without forensic-level descriptions of crime scenes, as is trying to put the clues together and solve the puzzle. Of course, if that’s what readers want, then there’s no reason to include murder, rape or kidnapping – a non-violent crime would allow the reader to solve the case along with the sleuth. Why does it have to be murder? Apparently, having a cozy revolve around a high crime raises the stakes, and the level of interest, beyond lesser crimes. Making the victim as unsympathetic as possible makes us feel less guilty as we focus on the clues and not on the tragedy.

This is just my opinion, and I don’t expect others to share it. Yet I can’t help but think no matter how horrible, difficult or mean the victim is, and even if the characters in your story aren’t upset by the murder, somewhere in the world beyond your pages is someone who will care, who’ll mourn the loss and be devastated by the cruelty of it.

Miko Johnston, a founding member of The Writers in Residence, is the author of the historical fiction series, “A Petal in the Wind”, as well as a contributor to several anthologies including the recently released “Whidbey Island: An Insider’s Guide”. Miko lives in Washington (the big one) with her rocket scientist husband. Contact her at mikojohnstonauthor@gmail.com

Do You Really Want to Be a Writer?

by Jacqueline Vick

Lots of people dream about writing. And writing for yourself and your family is great. Recording memories. Journaling for fun and self-awareness. These are all wonderful, creative pastimes that I encourage. In fact, if you write, you are a writer.

I suspect what most people mean when they say they want to be writers is that they want to make a lot of money doing something they enjoy. And that’s an honorable goal. But there will be challenges.

One thing that stands out from my time with the Sisters in Crime Los Angeles Speakers Bureau is the number of people in the audience who asked published writers for tips and then rejected them.

Audience Member: How do you find time to write a book?

Writer: You need to write every chance to get. On the train or bus if you commute. During your lunch hour. Or get up early.

AM: I drive to work. My lunch hour is too short. I have enough trouble getting up for work. I have no time.

Audience Member 2: How do I sell my book?

Writer: You have to put yourself out there to meet other writers and readers. Meet with book clubs. Do library or bookstore events.

AM2: I’m too shy. And I don’t have a car.

Writer: If in-person events are a problem, there are many online opportunities available.

AM2: I don’t have internet access.

Writer: You could do paid advertising.

AM2: I have no money.

Based on those conversations, I thought I’d give aspiring writers a reality check in the most loving way possible.

If you want to write for a living, you will run into obstacles. You will either find a way over them or around them, but, if you’re serious, you will move forward.

There are many paths to publication.

Online zines publish short stories, and some of them pay. Competition is high.

Traditional publishers will most likely require you to have an agent submit your book, which means having a clean, edited copy of your manuscript along with a polished query letter. Check with each agent for their requirements. (Or the publishers, for those who accept direct submissions.)

Self-publishing. You will need to have a professionally edited book and a professionally designed cover. After that, everything falls under your responsibility: submission to the markets, marketing the book, and handling all business decisions and finances.

My point is not to scare you but to prepare you.

I spend my typical day writing AND marketing. At this point, probably 40% of my time is working on marketing, whether that is appearances on websites or blogs, testing creatives for ads, testing headlines for ads, testing primary text for ads, keeping up with trends, watching my ads and making adjustments, such as killing the ones that aren’t working and adding ones I hope will work better. And so on.

I also spend hours each week in marketing groups as well as writer’s groups.

Part of my budget is spent on tools that help make me a better writer and marketer. ProWritingAid for grammar. Fictionary for story development. Unbounce, Mouseflow, and Shopify for marketing and direct sales. And the plugins to make Shopify perform better. Not to mention the thousands of dollars I spend on ads each month.

Usually, I come out ahead, but there are no guarantees. Some months, especially when Facebook makes a change that affects the algorithms, I don’t. But it’s a growing and learning process. You need to hang in there.

If that sounds like something that interests you, I suggest you join a writer’s group that focuses on your genre. Sisters in Crime, Romance Writers of America, and Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators are a few. They often have great resources.

Follow authors you like, especially those who write in the same genre, on social media. See what they’re doing. Study their Amazon book pages, author pages, or, more popular now, their direct sales shops.

And don’t expect overnight success.

If that sounds appealing to you—or at least it doesn’t scare you—good luck. May you have a long and fruitful career ahead of you.

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Litters of Letters

by Jill Amadio

Were there ten fewer consonants and only three vowels in the English alphabet, here’s how two of the Bard’s indelible lines would have been written:

“Fr n mr th het f th sn…”  

“Th ly’s th  thg…”

Much of our English is derived from other languages, including Latin, French, Greek,  Italian, German and the aliens for all we know. In fact, our precious alphabet initially descended from the Egyptian Pro-Sinaitic alphabet around 1,800 B.C. The Phoenicians took it up, followed by the Greeks, then the Romans, who brought it to the British Isles during their disgraceful occupation, only to be shunted aside by the bloodthirsty Anglo-Saxons.  By the 13th century, we are told, the “modern English alphabet had emerged from the Old English alphabet.”

Earlier, the Chinese, other Asians, and Russians had invented their own enigmatic images to represent words, adding to our confusion. The strokes used to appear to bear no relation to letters as we know them, but then the vice-versa is also true.

Some writers are rather taken by the French influence whereby we tend to add acute and grave accents over certain letters, and also by the German umlaut of two tiny dots placed over specific vowels.

My keyboard doesn’t provide any of these extra  elegant little marks although to the left of my number 1 in the top row there is a funny little squiggle that resembles a drunken letter N: ~. I am sure it has great significance but the meaning escapes me sand I have never felt compelled to use it, even as an April Fool’s Day joke.

So, by the 13th century the Normans generously presented the Brits with their very own alphabet, and many of the world’s most remarkable English writers went full-tilt into turning out their extraordinary literature.

In my Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, a 1,000-page tome, there is only a single reference to the alphabet. It is from Charles Dickens’  The Pickwick Papers. He had one of his characters, Samievel, being advised that although “there were many things you don’t understand now, but…as the charity boy said when he got to the end of the alphabet, it’s a matter of taste.“

I think Dickens was indicating that knowing the alphabet was a choice but something a poor person may not have the opportunity to learn, if, indeed, he could even read English.

That should be the end of this saga but I became fascinated with my research. It turns out that we have been cheated. There were originally 29 letters in the English alphabet although three other letters were left out entirely: J, U, and W. I also  read that NATO  has its own phonetic alphabet to help members pronounce  English words during their lifelong luxury residence in America.

What’s so interesting now is how our words have come to mean something else entirely, such as “swatting,” “hacking,” and many others.

I wonder how these words translate into other languages, and if the message changes with the wind. Their double meanings will undoubtedly show up in dictionaries although the editors might want to wait a couple of years in case an even different and additional meaning pops up.

At least we still have our five vowels and 21 consonants with which to create characters, settings, plots, and strategies.

What to Write When You Don’t Know What to Write.

by Jackie Houchin

  • Prompts help.
  • Other people’s ideas help.
  • Daydreaming out the window helps.
  • Deadlines help.
  • Contests help.
  • Tragedies or celebrations MAY help.
  • Anger MAY help if directed.
  • Copywork MAY help.
  • Unfinished manuscripts MAY help.
  • Praying (if so inclined) MAY help.

But what WORKS?  What can get your thoughts sparking and your fingers flying. What can set you on a course from A to B (with subpoints) or from Inciting incident to Denouement?  

Threats? Muses? Overdue bills?  Screaming? Pulling out hair? Ai? 

Wait….Ai?

Okay, I’m going to ask a ChatGPT assistant that question. I easily signed up, familiarized myself with a couple short questions, and then posed my dilemma.

(Oh, and I thought I needed to name my Assistant if I was going to use it. How about Charlie?) 

Meet Charlie.  

He’s not the sharpest pencil in the holder. He basically told me most of the things I’ve written above in a slightly different way. 

Here’s “Charlie’s” list of “helps”.

1. Free Writing:

  • Set a timer for 10-15 minutes and write continuously without worrying about grammar or structure. Let your thoughts flow freely; often, this can spark ideas you weren’t consciously considering.

2. Prompts and Ideas:

  • Use writing prompts to kickstart your creativity. For example, websites and books offer daily writing prompts, or you might start with “What if…?” scenarios that encourage imaginative thinking.

3. Mind Mapping:

  • Create a mind map around a central theme or topic that interests you. Branch out with related ideas, characters, or themes that come to mind. This visual representation can help organize your thoughts.

4. Write About Your Passion:

  • Reflect on topics or hobbies you’re passionate about. A blog can focus on your expertise, a hobby, or experiences you want to share. Writing about what you love can inspire authentic content.

5. Read Widely:

  • Read articles, books, and blogs in various genres. Exposure to different styles and topics can ignite new ideas or give you insight into what resonates with you.

6. Explore Personal Experiences:

  • Consider your own life experiences, emotions, or challenges you’ve faced. Personal stories often resonate with others and can be a rich source for blog posts, articles, or fiction.

7. Observe Your Surroundings:

  • Take time to observe the world around you—people, places, situations. Noticing everyday life can inspire ideas for fictional characters, settings, or events.

8. Set Goals:

  • Define what you want to achieve with your writing. If it’s a blog post, think about the message you want to convey. If it’s a short story, consider the theme or moral you want to explore.

9. Experiment with Different Genres:

  • If you’re unsure, try writing different genres or formats—a poem, a letter, or even dialogue. Experimenting can help you find your voice and lead to ideas for longer pieces.

10. Join Writing Groups or Workshops:

  • Engage with other writers in workshops, online forums, or book clubs. Sharing ideas and feedback can help stimulate creativity and lead to collaboration.

11. Create an Outline:

  • If you have a vague idea or concept, outline the main points or plot. This structure can act as a guide and make it easier to expand on your thoughts.

12. Give Yourself Permission to Write Badly:

  • Allow yourself to write poorly without judgment. The first draft doesn’t have to be perfect. Just get your ideas down; you can refine them later.

By using these strategies, you can overcome writer’s block and find inspiration for your blog, articles, stories, or any other writing project. Don’t forget to enjoy the process—exploration and creativity are key to finding your unique voice!

…

Well, not very creative.  I asked Charlie for MORE suggestions.  Here’s what he gave me this time.

.

“If you’re looking for ways to ignite your creativity and really get your writing flowing, here are some more active and engaging techniques to help you spark ideas and motivation:

1. Change Your Environment:

  • Sometimes a change of scenery can help. Try writing in a different location – a café, park, library, or even a different room in your home. New surroundings can stimulate fresh thoughts.

2. Engage in a Creative Activity:

  • Participate in activities that aren’t directly related to writing, such as drawing, painting, or crafting. This can help free your mind and lead to unexpected inspiration.

3. Use Music or Soundscapes:

  • Create a playlist that suits the tone of what you’re writing or listen to soundscapes that inspire a mood (like rain, ocean waves, or bustling city sounds). Music can enhance creativity and help set the scene for your writing.

4. Set a Writing Challenge:

  • Challenge yourself with quick writing exercises, such as composing a short story in 10 minutes or writing a poem from a random word generator. Short time constraints can boost creativity.

5. Visual Inspiration:

  • Browse through images on platforms like Pinterest or Unsplash. Find a picture that resonates with you and write a scene or story inspired by it.

6. Interactive Writing Prompts:

  • Find interactive storytelling games or writing prompts that require you to make quick decisions or choose paths (like “Choose Your Own Adventure” games). This can stimulate your imaginative side.

7. Use Creative Apps or Tools:

  • Explore writing tools or apps designed to prompt creativity, such as “The Most Dangerous Writing App,” which encourages you to keep typing without stopping.

8. Engage Your Senses:

  • Take a moment to close your eyes and focus on each of your senses. What do you hear, smell, feel, or taste? Write a descriptive paragraph based on your sensory exploration.

9. Flash Fiction:

  • Write a complete story in 100 words or less. This constraint can force you to focus and be intentional with your word choices, leading to new ideas.

10. Interview Your Characters:

  • If you’re working on fiction, write down interview questions for your characters and answer them in their voice. This can deepen your understanding and lead to new plot ideas.

11. Use ‘What If?’ Exercises:

  • Take a mundane situation and apply a ‘What If?’ scenario. For example, “What if someone found a hidden letter in their attic?” This can help you explore unexpected plot twists or themes.

12. Journaling:

  • Keep a dedicated writing journal where you jot down random thoughts, dreams, or observations daily. This habit can lead you to uncover hidden ideas over time.

13. Connect with Other Writers:

  • Have a brainstorming session with a writing buddy. Discuss ideas, trade prompts, or even start a writing sprint together, encouraging each other in real-time.

14. Limit Distractions:

  • Turn off notifications and clear your workspace of distractions. Sometimes a focused environment can help ideas flow more freely.

Finding your flow might take some experimentation with different methods until you find what resonates with you. Don’t be afraid to try out various techniques and see what gets your creativity sparking and fingers flying across the keyboard!

..
 
 
Again….. 
 
Not quite the help I wanted. (They tell me the better ways I ASK for help, the better RESPONSES I’ll get, so I guess I need practice there.) 
 
 
 
Readers, how do YOU decide what to write?   (Please share your secrets!)
 
Have YOU ever tried Ai?  (If so, how? And are you happy with the experience?)
 
 

My Reading Life in Classics

by Maggie King

My love affair with the classics took off in 1989. Why 1989? That was when I started a job in downtown Los Angeles. One day at lunch a co-worker asked if I wanted to go to the library. Surprised, I said, “Sure!” I’d never worked with anyone who spent her lunch hour at the library.

We walked to the Los Angeles Public Library and I checked out Jane Eyre. I had a vague memory of reading Charlotte Bronte’s tome in high school and decided to try it again. Over the next few years, I read—in many cases revisiting my high school reading list—works by Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Willa Cather, Theodore Dreiser, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gustav Flaubert, Thomas Hardy, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving, D. H. Lawrence, Sinclair Lewis, W. Somerset Maugham, Ayn Rand, Robert Lewis Stevenson, Leo Tolstoy, Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, and Virginia Woolf, among others.

Many I loved, with a few being okay. Sad to say, I didn’t like Wuthering Heights any better in the early nineties than I had in high school. Heathcliff was just too dark (funny reaction from a crime writer, but there you have it). For many years, Jane Eyre topped my list of favorite classics. But a year ago, I picked it up for the third time and didn’t even finish it. Jane Eyre was given to monologues! Apparently that didn’t bother me thirty-plus years ago.

In 1993 I joined a mystery group and became obsessed with that genre, classic and contemporary. Up to that point, I’d read many Agatha Christie mysteries, but few by other authors. It wasn’t long before I started penning my own.

I try to read at least one classic a year, and sometimes it’s a mystery. A favorite is Wilkie Collins’s early example of detective fiction, Woman in White. I read the epics Brothers Karamazov and War and Peace from start to finish and lived to tell it! I finally got to Little Women a few years ago. I had seen countless film versions but never actually read the delightful autobiographical novel by Louisa May Alcott. David Copperfield was wonderful but populated with characters who, like Jane Eyre, spoke at great length.

Why do I love the classics? They have a timeless quality and universal appeal, essential traits that make a classic a classic. Little Women—despite the lack of texting and social media—could be a contemporary coming-of-age novel.

The classics are known for well-drawn characters and compelling storylines. That said, it can take time for a classic story to be compelling. Contemporary books have to grab the reader on page one; classics require more patience, but are worth the wait. My friend who took me to the LAPL and I started Middlemarch together. Several times I was ready to close the book for good but, being a faster reader, my friend assured me that the story would pick up. Sure enough, George Eliot’s masterpiece became a page turner.

What’s my next classic? Many of my author friends rave about The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. And I’ve had Elizabeth Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters on my TBR list for some time.

Would reading the classics benefit writers? Absolutely! Have they improved my writing? As an optimist, I want to think so—but such a belief is hard to verify. This post on KindredGrace, “5 Reasons Why Every Serious Writer Should Read Classic Literature”, is worth reading. I especially like #4: Classic literature expands our knowledge base for literary allusions.

Renowned author Joyce Carol Oates suggests that writers read Ulysses by James Joyce. According to her, our vocabulary will improve (or, if nothing else, we’ll want our vocabulary to improve). I take Ms. Oates’s point, but will pass on Ulysses (I managed to get through one chapter).

Back to where the classics began for me: here’s a photo of the beautiful and impressive Los Angeles Public Library. During my stint working downtown, this building was closed for renovations due to two fires, and the collection was temporarily housed on South Spring St. By the time the original building reopened in 1993, I was working elsewhere, but occasionally returned to visit this stunning structure. If you can visit, do so, but you can read about it here.

Closing thoughts: what contemporary novels will become classics? Any of our own? Perhaps works by Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, and Joyce Carol Oates will stand the test of time. As for contemporary crime novels, would any make the cut? As much as I enjoy them, they lack the timeless quality—even the historical ones. I’d love to be proved wrong. In the meantime, we have Arthur Conan Doyle, Wilkie Collins, Anna Katharine Green, Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, and many others.

A big thanks to Alison, my long ago library pal!