All I Can Do is Tell the Story

My friend @jsolberg left the following comment in response to a recent post about my books.

Had your own real life been struck by the tragedy of a murdered loved-one, do you think you could still have written about these subjects without the grief overcoming you? And add to that the thought of marketing the deepest sadness known to man... as entertainment? My personal history is a minuscule market-share, I of course realize. Yet I admit I can't look at the covers without a wrenching pain in my heart. perhaps your response can change that...

I have given this a good bit of thought and, to be honest, I don't know whether I can change that. I don't know that I can answer that question in a way that will satisfy either of us, but I'm going to try. So I will start with the easy part. Perhaps if I start with the pat answer, I can find my way to an answer that is as honest and personal as the question.

Nine of the 25 top-rated broadcast television shows last week, in terms of total viewership, were mysteries or detective shows, starting with NCIS at number 1. Nine of the top ten hardcover fiction bestsellers on the NY Times best seller list last week were crime fiction of one sort or another, with murder at the center of the plot, starting with Kill Shot at number 1. So the pat answer is that millions of people find entertainment value by reading and watching murder mysteries, crime fiction, thrillers and suspense. But that, of course, doesn't answer the question.

Most mystery writers will tell you that their stories are about the triumph of justice, that the mystery is solved, the bad guy is caught and punished, that good triumphs over evil. And that's true, as far as it goes. People enjoy the puzzle; they enjoy the challenge of solving the crime before the fictional detective. Perhaps people also like taking a vicarious walk down a dark alley on the wrong side of the tracks. I don't know.

For me, as a writer, the dead body is not the story, the dead body is the way to gain access to a story about the living, a story that I would want to tell whether or not there was a dead body. I have said elsewhere that at some point in the series, I'm going to send my publisher a book in which no one dies, in which there is no mystery to solve. Because the story that I'm telling is Cassie's story and I can tell her story whether or not someone is murdered.

But the truth is I'm a mystery writer and I'm proud to be a mystery writer. The books are amateur sleuth mysteries. They are marketed as mysteries. They are sold as mysteries.

But I still haven't answered the question.

Had your own real life been struck by the tragedy of a murdered loved-one, do you think you could still have written about these subjects without the grief overcoming you?

Yes. I think I could have written them. But I'm not sure I could read them.

I'm a writer. It's what I do. It's how I process the events in my life. I write them down. I consider myself fortunate indeed that I have not had to face such a tragedy. But I have faced other tragedies, large and small. As have we all. And they find their way into my storytelling.

One of my favorite quotes comes from a Hasidic parable that Elie Wiesel uses as a preface of sorts to his book, The Gates of the Forest.

When the great Rabbi Israel Baal Shem-Tov saw misfortune threatening the Jews it was his custom to go into a certain part of the forest to meditate. There he would light a fire, say a special prayer, and the miracle would be accomplished and the misfortune averted.

Later, when his disciple, the celebrated Magid of Mezritch, had occasion, for the same reason, to intercede with heaven, he would go to the same place in the forest and say: "Master of the Universe, listen! I do not know how to light the fire, but I am still able to say the prayer," and again the miracle would be accomplished.

Still later, Rabbi Moshe-Leib of Sasov, in order to save his people once more, would go into the forest and say: "I do not know how to light the fire, I do not know the prayer, but I know the place and this must be sufficient." It was sufficient and the miracle was accomplished.

Then it fell to Rabbi Israel of Rizhyn to overcome misfortune. Sitting in his armchair, his head in his hands, he spoke to God: "I am unable to light the fire and I do not know the prayer; I cannot even find the place in the forest. All I can do is to tell the story, and this must be sufficient." And it was sufficient.

God made man because he loves stories.

I think it was Salmon Rushdie who referred to man as "the storytelling animal". I would suggest that all of human experience is processed in our stories. I began with a pat answer and perhaps, at the end, that is still all I have. Millions of people find entertainment value by reading and watching murder mysteries, crime fiction, thrillers and suspense. But you are not millions of people. You are one person and you bring your own life experience with you. I am sorry for your pain. I wish I had a better answer.

All I can do is tell the story, and this must be sufficient.

Who is Cassie O'Malley

My alter-ego, Cassie O’Malley is a tabloid reporter and amateur sleuth.  She is a woman whose life has failed to live up to her expectations. A Princeton graduate now in her late thirties, Cassie has been a widow for nearly fifteen years. Her dream of becoming a big-time investigative reporter has been replaced by the reality of her job writing outlandish stories about space aliens and psychics for a barely reputable tabloid magazine. And when the longtime owner/editor sells the magazine, even that seems to be crumbling.  And then there's the small matter of the dead bodies...

Cassie has never come to terms with the death of her husband, her college sweetheart, Rob.  They were married after graduation, and Rob died shortly thereafter.  Cassie blogged about it June 5, 2006:
Sometimes I hate Rob for dying.We got married right after graduation.  It was lovely, a Princeton wedding.  We were married in the university chapel.We had the reception at Prospect House.We honeymooned on the Maine coast.

In September, Rob started law school and I took a job as a researcher for the network news.  That's when Rob's parasomnia began to get worse.  He had night terrors since he was a kid.  Most of the time, kids grow out of it.  Not Rob.  More than once, he scared the crap out of me, at Princeton, sitting up in bed in the middle of the night, screaming, and he was still asleep.  But it was mostly under control.

Then he started law school and the night terrors got worse.  It got to the point Rob was afraid to go to sleep.  The doctor said it was stress.  I always thought it was odd that starting law school was so stressful for Rob.  I mean, he was possibly the smartest person I ever met.  Only recently, I've begun to wonder.  Maybe the stress had nothing to do with law school.

If it had been me with the night terrors, I would have toughed it out, in Washington, in law school.  But Rob wasn't tough that way.  So we made arrangements to postpone his law school admission and we retreated to the peace and quiet of the Pine Barrens.

Three months later, Rob was dead.  They say when you die in your sleep, it's a peaceful way to go.  But when I woke up that morning, the look of terror in Rob's eyes...

Today would have been our fourteenth anniversary.

Sometimes I hate myself for hating Rob for dying.

I’ve written three mysteries that feature Cassie:
Who is Killing Doah’s Deer?
A Minor Case of Murder
It’s Beginning to Look a Lot like Murder

         

Dead Romanian Oscar Party

We all got dressed in our fancy clothes last night and watched the Oscars on TV. 



And just like that, my dead Romanian ancestors find a new home on blogger.

When Jello Attacks 2

It was my first shift as night watchman at the top secret government laboratory.

The earnest young scientist who ran the lab left me with explicit instructions.

One, he said, don't touch any of the experiments.
And, two, and he was quite emphatic here, don't let anyone gain access to the lab.

It was a quiet night, boring, to be honest.  I made my rounds.  I didn't understand any of it, especially the part about how scientists at the lab could use the tiniest of bugs to conduct important genetic research.

I was starting to get hungry.  I'd forgotten to bring anything to eat and the cafeteria, of course, was closed.  Then I noticed something odd.  Someone had left a package at the lab's front door.

That's right, a box of jello.

A box of orange jello.  No harm in that.  So I opened the door.  What could possibly go wrong?

That's when the mini robotic aliens came swarming out of the box!

They were tiny, but they were clever.  They went straight for the computer that controlled the entire operation.  They knew exactly which keys to jump on.  It didn't take them long to disable the computer.

The scientists were unprepared for the scene that awaited them in the morning.

The lab was overrun with gigantic bugs.

And me?  What happened to me, I hear you asking. 

I was up to my ass, and then some, in radioactive orange jello.

What, Me worry?

NaNoWriMo Tip #18

Well, I didn't manage to post 30 tips in 30 days, but it's November 30 and I guess I ought to post one final tip for those of you who are still reading.  And it's funny, according to the stats, some of you are still reading.  After today, I'll have to decide what I want to do with this site.  I shifted my NaNo tips here rather than tie up The Chalk Outline throughout November with NaNoWriMo.  So now I need to think about whether there's a reason to keep this blog active.  Anyway...

Many of the folks who participate in NaNoWriMo do so for the joy of writing, with no greater ambition than to reach 50,000 words and have fun doing it.  Which is remarkably sensible.  But some of you aspire to becoming a published writer.  And, let's be honest, a few of you are already fantasizing about who's going to play the heroine when your manuscript becomes a best-selling book and your best-selling book becomes a movie.  So I feel like I ought to devote one tip to the subject of publishing.
 
I read an interesting quote not long ago.  "When you die, I believe, God isn't going to ask you what you published.  God's going to ask you what you wrote." (T.M. McNally, "Big Dogs and Little Dogs," in Rules of Thumb, Martone and Neville).  There's a certain wisdom to that remark, but, with all due respect to McNally and to God, the Almighty isn't in my target demographic.  God, perhaps, will read my unpublished manuscripts, but the ladies in the Killer Coffee Club won't read my books unless they're published.

I have been an unpublished author, a self-published author and a traditionally published author, so I believe I may have some perspective on the subject.  There is a difference, although the difference is not necessarily in the writing.  In my own experience, being a traditionally published author is more work.  It's also more fun.  It's not necessarily more profitable (for the author).  And it's not necessarily better writing.  It's entirely possible that the best manuscript I've ever written is the one that is unpublished and will never be published.  But when you're traditionally published, they teach you the secret handshake.  And you get the decoder ring.
 
If you want to be published, it starts by writing the best book you're capable of writing.  It starts there, but it surely doesn't end there.  Because writing a great book is an art.  But selling a great book is a business.  If that sounds cold, that's only because it is.

So, put the finishing touch on your manuscript.  Pour yourself a drink (make it a double).

NaNoWriMo Tip the last
Don't take advice from strange men on the internet.

NaNoWriMo Tip #17

NaNoWriMo Tip #17 - Write a multi-generational family saga.
No matter the genre or the current word count, allow your characters to die - let them die peacefully in their sleep at a ripe old age, or horribly at the hands of a crazed killer in the prime of life, it matters not - just let them die with their secrets.  Now let their secrets fester in the attic for generations.  Let their secrets play havoc with subsequent generations.  Let their secrets, finally, be revealed to a grandchild or great-grandchild or great-great-grandchild.  Obviously, you should let the extent of your word count shortage determine the correct number of generations.
 
I'll keep this tip short today because some of you have family trees to create.  But make sure to stop back tomorrow for another NaNoWriMo tip of the day.

NaNoWriMo Tip #16

Note: I'm getting my turkey out of the apple brine and don't have time to log onto my account this morning.  I'm hoping that the monkeys (Tip #13) have something ready to post.  Let's see.




BaNaNaWriMo Tip #16 - Monkeys, like most creative types, need an occasional day off.
Have a happy Thanksgiving and come back tomorrow for a proper NaNoWriMo tip of the day.