02/18/2009

By Carole Shmurak

When The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins first appeared in 1868, it was printed in weekly installments in Charles Dickens’s magazine All the Year Round. Each week, readers thronged the streets in front of the magazine office, eager for the next part. No book, except Collins’s The Woman in White, published 8 years earlier, had ever received such a reception. Many years later, the poet T.S. Eliot would refer to The Moonstone as “the first, the longest, and the best of the modern English detective novels.”

The moonstone is a diamond – not the semi-precious stone we call “moonstone” today – stolen from a statue of the moon god in India and later inherited by the young Rachel Verinder on her 18th birthday. It disappears the same night, and the three Hindu men reportedly seen nearby are immediately suspected. But of course things are not so simple as they first appear, and it is well over a year before the diamond is recovered and the mystery of its theft is solved. In the interim, many lives have been disrupted and several characters are dead.

The story is told in a series of narratives by some of the characters, making them much like witnesses at a trial. In this book, Collins originated many of the conventions of the mystery genre: a crime at an English country home, a small group of suspects present when the crime occurs, a bumbling local policeman, and investigation by both a talented amateur detective and the celebrated detective from Scotland Yard.

Life moved at a different pace in the 19th century, and books from the mid-1800s reflect that. Reading The Moonstone takes some patience in 2010, but it’s well worth it. The first-time reader will be intrigued by the mystery of the gem’s disappearance, while the re-reader can savor the gentle humor of some of the narratives and the biting satire of some of the others.

After Lisa Genova wrote the book Still Alice, a novel about a young woman’s decent into dementia, she spent a year trying to sell the work to literary agents and publishing houses. Unfortunately, no one would listen. The agents that did consider the project told Lisa the book wouldn’t sell. So what did Lisa do? She created a website about Alzheimer’s Disease and started writing a blog. She also decided to self-publish her book. As a result of the valuable information on her website and blog, the book sold quickly, and in 2008 Simon & Schuster purchased the book at auction for just over half a million dollars. The book was re-released in January 2009 and after two weeks made the New York Times Bestseller list. Lisa tells Web Ink Now, “You absolutely have to have a Web site. Get a profile up on Facebook and MySpace right away. When you get press, people will immediately want to go to your site.”

Here is a fun office game for a Wednesday: The Gender Genie. The Gender Genie is a simplified version of an algorithm to predict the gender of an author. Simply submit a paragraph to the website, and the Gender Genie guesses your gender based on your writing style. The Genie works by analyzing the number of male keywords compared to the number of female keywords. Words like “around,” what,” “more” and “are” indicate a male writer while words like “with,” “if,” “not” and “where” indicate a female writer. Test the Gender Genie by clicking here.

A passage from The Diva Code: Miss Piggy on Life, Love, and the 10,000 Idiotic Things Men Frogs Do:

HE'S STATUS OBSESSED--It's all about the label, the fancy car, the platinum-encrusted watch, the vacation place in Gstaad, and the showy perks.
WHAT VOUS NEED TO DO: Give moi his number.

This week, the Google Book Settlement website was launched which allows authors and other copyright holders to submit claims to participate in the settlement. Authors, publishers and copyright holders will be awarded $60 per scanned book. In return, Google will be able to index the books and display passages in search results. Copyright holders have until January 5, 2010 to file a claim. Do you think this settlement is fair? Let us know by clicking here.

Britney Spears is getting ready to ‘write’ a tell-all memoir detailing her recent behavior in the past few years, and top publishers are abuzz with who will get the deal. Editors with Dutton and Harper Collins will be taking meetings with Spears and her agent to outline their “publishing programs.” When did literature become about Hollywood? Instead of major publishers investing in new literature and authors, they are putting money into the hands of a Hollywood product that will do nothing to stimulate the minds of readers around the world. Will anybody buy Spears’ book? Will you?

When I began my first novel there were a few things that compelled me. Not fame, not fortune, although, of course, the hope for those lies eternal within me.

The reason I started to write was that I was in a dark place in my life at the time and writing was very cathartic. I had always wanted to write a novel and all of a sudden I had the time to do it. One must do something while awake at all hours of the night. I wrote about my issues and although I will eventually publish that story, as I was about 100 pages into it, the idea for my sports mysteries hit me hard.

Now that I have found that I can combine my passion for sports with my love of mysteries and weave them into novels that people enjoy, I can’t stop. Not that I want to stop, but I couldn’t, even if I did want to.

Many things along the way reinforced the reasons I was fighting through this long, arduous process. The process of writing, editing and marketing is very enjoyable, yet, at times, completely frustrating. Every author needs something that drives them to continue. Setting small goals is essential. In the beginning it was finishing the manuscript. Then, it was landing an agent, then a publisher, then endorsements (thanks again Mr. Patterson.) Of course, getting TV options signed and a multi-book contract was exciting too. But recently I found something new that really makes me feel good about my books. Just the other day I was told by a high school varsity football player that he loved my book. Every author loves to hear those words about his/her work, but what really made me smile was when the boy said, “I usually hate reading, in fact, I don’t read at all unless I have to for school, but your book was different. I couldn’t put it down. When will your next book be available?”

That was one of the most gratifying moments in my writing career to date.

Then I found out that another younger boy was writing a report on Sudden Death for his English class. Then I received a request from a high school senior girl to do an online interview that she was going to use for her school English class.

While my first novel was not written for young adults, many kids are enjoying it anyway. And if I have helped even one non-reader to become a reader, that’s enough for me. I can relate to Mr. Patterson’s program Read Kiddo Read. I think reading is one of the most important things a young person can do to enhance their life.

So even if fame and fortune haven’t come into my life yet, a degree of true fortune really has. Providing entertainment through my novels is a great reason to write, but helping turn a non-reading kid into a reader enriches my heart.

Michael Balkind, the author of Sudden Death, is a graduate of Syracuse University, has a successful career in sales and marketing, and has owned several businesses.

After you decide what kind of story you want to write, where do you go from there? There's only two directions. One is to construct a plot outline and follow it throughout the manuscript -- from the first paragraph to the climax. I think that takes a lot of work and a lot of planning that sometimes can be frustrating as the plot veers from the intended direction. I go in another direction, I just let things fly.

I get an idea for a plot, something that can really cause problems. For instance, during the Gulf War I read a suggestion that everybody should write a letter to a serviceman. Don't worry about to whom. Somebody will get it. As I read that, I thought what a stupid thing to do, write and not know who is on the other end. I knew guys in the service who could have easily been psychopaths, and guys like them were getting the letters?

So I began to think what could happen if a psychopath did get some letters, some of which -- as I pointed out in "The Pen Pal Murders” -- set up a psychopathic sting operation of murder and robbery while leaving a lot of well-meaning letter-writers dead.

For me and writing, it's take what comes, write it and run with it -- no outline. There will be changes, but start with the premise, the problems, the characters and let it fly from there. You will introduce exciting characters that you never expected would be a part of your story and I think that will keep your readers locked in.

So I started off with a woman who did write and whose husband suddenly disappears. That was followed by mysterious phone calls and continued in a frightening but very possible direction. As I wrote, I imagined new situations or extensions of older ones and drew upon them. I never gave it a chance to slow down -- always trying to
keep the reader on pins and needles.

Following is a method I like. It was used in my Master’s work and we called it "Living Your Story." We studied Shakespeare and in doing so each class member had to play roles. One time I was King Lear's daughter, Reagen. The fun part of it was not only trying to act like Reagen, but also to talk like her and in a voice pitched like a woman’s. It was the same for all the characters, and it was fun.

It did help me with my writing. I really lived the characters in Pen Pals, and later in Sitting Duck. I talked out loud like I thought a psychopath might talk and think, and I used that approach for each character. I thought, talked like and became the female protagonist. I embodied a police officer, talked and thought like him. I became a female reporter -- thought and talked like her. I did that with every character, bar none, and I think it made each one of them more believable. I was a bastard in the final chapter working out what I was going to do to the women I was holding prisoner. Don't ask me about it. It was scary. Sometimes as I was doing all of this I frightened myself. But I think by using that method, I created characters and a story that nobody could say: "That could never have happened."

Questions/Comments? Contact Jim at james@jamesfalk.net, or visit www.jamesfalk.net.

James Falk, as a teen-ager, used to dream of being a big-time racketeer. Fortunately, his dream didn't come true. A 10th grade dropout, he finished highschool after four years in the Marines and went on to earn a B.A. in Journalism and an M.A. in Communications.

By Amanda Linsmeier

Dance Upon the Air, the first in the Three Sisters Island Trilogy by Nora Roberts is a delightful novel about magic and courage. Three Sisters Island was formed after the Salem Witch Trials by three witches. It was ripped away from Massachusetts by magic and inhabited by the witches, all of whom faced tragedy in their lifetimes. Now their descendants, two former friends and one stranger must face a new evil that challenges them all. Nell Channing is new to the island. And there’s something about her that people can’t shake, especially her new boss Mia and Deputy Ripley Todd. Nell’s got a haunted look in her eye, a way of furtively looking about, a vulnerability that makes Mia take her under her wing. Not only does Mia give Nell a job as a cook in her bookstore/café but she also rents her a charming yellow cottage. What begins as a professional relationship turns into more as Mia helps Nell to uncover the magic inside her. With a budding confidence in herself, Nell confides in Mia and Ripley her dangerous, dark past. She wasn’t always named Nell. But she changed her former identity, Helen Remington, after she faked her own death and escaped the clutches of an abusive and controlling husband. Now though Nell has found peace on the island and a love with Sheriff Zack Todd, Ripley’s brother, she must confront the biggest fear of all when she finds that the past isn’t as far away as she’d wanted to believe.

Dance Upon the Air is a good novel, and though not my favorite of Roberts, it kept me intrigued and I loved the magical aspect in it. If this book were a movie, I’d compare it as a cross between Practical Magic and Sleeping With the Enemy. I really rooted for Nell for being so brave, for starting her life over again. And although this is a romance, I really wasn’t focused on that while reading it. I felt the relationship Nell had with herself, as well as the relationships between the three women was the strongest points. I would definitely read this novel again and can’t wait to finish the trilogy and find out what happens next!