The Elements of Mystery Fiction: Writing the Modern Whodunit

by Tapply, William G.

  The place for your first formal signing is your neighborhood bookstore.

  Finally, the calendar sections of those authors organizations’ newsletters list regional fan conventions, writers conferences, and—for the most bang for the buck—regional conferences of the American Booksellers Association, such as the New England Booksellers Association and the Southeast Booksellers Association. Even if your publisher won’t have a table at such events, one of the organizations you belong to might. Volunteer to staff it for a few hours so you can meet and hand a copy of your press kit to the attending bookstore owners and managers from your region in a very time-and-cost-efficient way.

  Focus locally

  The former Speaker of the House, Tip O’Neill, once said, “All politics is local.” First-time authors can substitute “publicity” for “politics,” because you must build a solid local fan base to be successful. And it’s generally free, or close to it.

  First, hit your local newspapers. Typically they are dying to run feature articles on area folks, and they can time the appearance of the story to coincide with your big, local bookstore signing to which you will invite every human being who possibly might attend.

  Second, many local high schools and libraries have speaker programs. Seek them out. Never turn down an invitation. It’s a great way for you to become comfortable at public presentation, and there are several hidden advantages. Often high school librarians will attend a class day and then recommend you to their librarian friends at other schools. Also, a librarian from Town A might “audition” you by being in the audience at your library talk in Town B, and if you do well, she may invite you to speak at her venue.

  Schools and libraries often receive grants for paying speakers honoraria. I’ve received as little as $25 for gas and tolls, and as much as $2,000 for a one-hour speech. Don’t be afraid to ask about honoraria: They enable you to earn back some of that advance that you’ve spent on other publicity.

  Third, approach your local cable-access television station. These outlets are required by law to provide “cultural” content during their broadcast hours, and you, a published author, qualify. The best of these shows are interview situations, with two chairs, a coffee table displaying your book, and an interviewer who knows how to ask questions. He or she typically will urge you to huck your novel shamelessly, creating, in effect, a free infomercial all about you.

  It gets better: Station A in your town produces the show, then repeats the broadcast ten or twelve times during the next few weeks at various times of day and night on its channel, thus reaching a self-selecting audience of book-lovers that no direct-mail expert could target.

  Even better, Station A will license that half-hour show to Stations B through Z in other towns, since it’s cheaper for those stations to pay a usage fee to A than to produce independent shows themselves. And then they broadcast your show to their self-selecting book-loving audiences. For a few hours of your time, you get incredible impact and breadth.

  One important point: Even if you have to buy them yourself (at your author’s discount), bring enough copies of your book to inscribe not only for the interviewer, but also for the camera operators, the director, and everyone else who helps produce the show. It’s a matter of courtesy and gratitude, and it’s likely to get you invited back when your next novel comes out.

  Closing comments

  Regardless of what kind of publicity you do, be yourself. Don’t try to imitate anybody. People like, trust, and appreciate sincerity; they suspect phonies.

  If you take your job as self-publicist seriously and do it effectively, your book will sell well enough that when your next one comes out, your publisher will have its publicity and marketing departments handle the work for you.

  Chapter 19

  Persistence

  Vicki Stiefel

  Two men stand on beach, the surf tickling their feet. Charlie yells, “Hey, Phil. I got a great title for my next novel!”

  Phil smiles. “And it is?”

  “Bleaching the Bones.” Charlie slaps his thigh. “Isn’t that great?”

  “Wow,” says Phil. He moves a little to the right and casts his lure into the sea. He’s shaking his head. He happens to know that Charlie, who calls himself a novelist, has never written a word in his life. But he’s come up with lots of terrific titles for novels.

  999

  Persistence is about the start—actually putting the pen to page, the fingers to keyboard. If you don’t start, you’ll never get there.

  999

  What does it take to persist until your novel is published? Guts, insanity, intensity, determination, stubbornness, and, most of all, passion.

  999

  For me, novel writing is creative and exciting. It’s all about feelings. It’s also, emphatically, about getting published. Writing with any other goal is like one hand clapping. Very Zen, but not where I’m at.

  I write for many reasons. Writing satisfies something deep and personal inside me. But I always aim to get published.

  999

  Maybe it’s all about our individual need to overcome obstacles. Maybe persistence in writing a novel is simply a desperate, stubborn belief that it matters.

  Writing, and the persistence it takes to do it—to finish, revise, rewrite, edit, and sell a story or a novel—fulfills my need to have my imagination transformed into reality.

  999

  Phil the surf-caster knows all about persistence.

  He was always a doer, a worker, a mover. An Olympic-caliber fencer in college, he knew what it meant to dig in, to work hard, and to keep going when the going got tough. Phil had grit, and he usually succeeded. After college, he attended the esteemed Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Then, bam! He sold his first novel. Not bad, eh?

  Another novel soon flowed from his pen. It went…nowhere. Rejection notes filled his files.

  Years passed. Phil got married, taught college English, sired children, traveled. And he continued to write novels—seven or eight of them, he can’t quite remember. He completed a novel every year or two. He kept writing novels.

  He got nothing but rejections. After that first triumph, Phil met with no success at all.

  But he persisted.

  Twenty years after the sale of his first novel, he sold his second one.

  Philip R. Craig now writes the popular Martha’s Vineyard mystery series.

  999

  Don’t give up. It’s simple. Those three words define persistence

  But, really, it’s all a crock, right? Surely, you’re thinking, I wouldn’t have been asked to write this chapter in this book unless I’d published a novel. So who am I to talk?

  What about all the hopeful writers who persist…and never make it, never get published, get nothing but rejections? No one asks them to write chapters about persistence.

  Persistence alone matters.

  It’s not a crock.

  999

  Here’s the recipe. True, it doesn’t work for everyone. You can follow the recipe and still fail. Haven’t you ever made a lousy meal even though you followed the recipe?

  But if you don’t follow this recipe, you stand no chance of getting published.

  Write every day.

  Read all sorts of fiction. Read constantly.

  Join a workshop or writing group.

  Complete your manuscript. Finish what you start.

  Revise it. Then revise it some more.

  Give it to several trusted readers. Ask for their suggestions. Insist on candor.

  Revise it again.

  Get an agent.

  Keep doing it.

  Keep learning, improving, applying what you learn.

  999

  In 1993, I joined a writers group. We had a dozen members, and each week we read two of our members’ pieces. Most readings were from novels-in-progress.

  One member, Ethan, was a talented writer. His stories were rich in voice and personality. He could paint vivid scenes and create memorable character
s. But he was still a novice. Even his best stuff needed revising.

  Whenever Ethan’s work was critiqued, he’d take copious notes and listen intently to our discussion about the scenes he’d presented to the group. We’d comment on what he’d written with great thought and energy and feeling, all with the aim of helping him make it better.

  A few weeks later when Ethan’s turn came around again, our group would listen to the beginning of yet another new novel.

  Ethan refused to revise. Whenever one of his scenes was critiqued and suggestions were offered, he gave up on it and started a new story, thinking maybe this time he’d get it right.

  Rather than persist in honing what he’d written, much of which was wonderful, he abandoned it.

  Ethan never did get anything published. Last I heard, he had quit writing. Such a waste of talent.

  Finish the last word on the last page. Then dig in. Revise and edit. Hone those words, make those cuts, discard that character, shift that scene.

  Writing a first draft is a monumental accomplishment. Editing it until it sings is even bigger.

  999

  You’re going to get rejected. And rejected again. And again. By agents. By editors. By publishers.

  Remember: It’s not YOU that’s being rejected. It’s your work.

  999

  Nowadays you need an agent to sell your novel. You must submit your chapters to countless agents. They have the privilege of being your first rejectors.

  So now you’ve got stacks of agent rejections. You must stink. It’s time to quit. What’s the point? Why bother? It’s too much work, heartbreak, and frustration.

  A lot of people quit. What we know for certain about quitters is: They will never be published.

  So persist.

  Have faith in yourself and your work. Go back to it and sweat and write and edit some more.

  Stick to the recipe.

  And, finally, maybe you’ll get a nibble from an agent. Then a bite.

  999

  Persistence is just doing it. Not thinking about doing it or worrying about doing it. Doing it.

  Keep writing.

  Keep improving.

  Keep getting feedback.

  Keep submitting.

  Submit only your very best work. Agents and editors don’t want to see half-baked or half-finished material. They’re not interested in potential. They want something to publish.

  999

  I meet Susie Editor at a writers conference. She loves my pitch, so at her request, I send her three chapters and a synopsis.

  Phone call: Hi, Vicki, this is Suzie Editor. I love it! The characters are great. The plot’s terrific. Please send the complete manuscript.

  I’m thrilled. I send it.

  Phone call: Hi, Vicki, this is Suzie Editor again. Wow! I love your book. We want to buy it, but I’d like you to make a few changes first.

  She has a long list of suggested changes. Most of them make good sense to me.

  I make them all and send them to Suzie.

  Two months pass. No word from Suzie Editor. I call her and get her voice mail. I leave a message.

  Another two weeks go by. I call again.

  Molly Editor answers. I’m afraid, she says, Susie’s no longer with us. I’d be happy to look at your manuscript? Send me three chapters.

  But wait. Susie has the whole novel. She said you guys wanted to buy it.

  Sorry, Molly says. Never heard of it. Just send the chapters and a synopsis, please.

  So I send Molly Editor the revised three chapters and a synopsis.

  She doesn’t like my heroine. Nor does she like the plot. Or the setting. In fact, there’s nothing she does like about my novel.

  Sorry, says Molly Editor. No sale.

  I’m depressed for a week.

  Then I pull out the recipe. And I write, write, write.

  999

  Why bother?

  All writers at one time or another have asked themselves: Why bother? Everyone experiences that frustration. I sure have. Four unpublished novels hide under my bed. At one point, after asking myself Why Bother for the millionth time, I took up gardening. Others writers I know have taken up sushi making, scuba diving, needlepoint. Most passions are less stressful than writing.

  Many writers get discouraged and quit. That’s the end of any possible career.

  Everyone who’s been published has gone back to writing.

  If you return to writing, you stand a chance of getting published. If you don’t, you have no chance at all.

  999

  If it’s in you, you will, and if it’s not, you won’t. But be aware that others have walked this same path you’re walking now. Most successful writers faced a lot of early rejection and discouragement. They persisted.

  Persistence isn’t all about fighting battles. There will also be admiration for your doggedness, for the fact that you’ve actually finished a novel. Others will care that you’re writing, and they’ll pull for you.

  You should take pride in persisting. Persistence is admirable.

  If you persist, you will reward not only yourself, but also your friends and your loved ones, when, finally, you see your book in print.

  It feels swell. I know.

  After twelve years of writing novels, of submitting manuscripts, of opening rejection letters, of landing an agent, of getting more rejections…I finally received an enthusiastic acceptance from a publisher.

  My first novel is in print. Twelve years.…

  Now I’ve gone back to the recipe. I’m writing a new novel, and I know I’ll have to persist all over again.

  Believe, me, the second time is easier.

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