Mystery Writing

Why is Character Development Important?

~ Kristina Stanley ~ Leave a comment

While I spend time in Canada during the summer, I get to watch the news on TV, something that never happens in the Bahamas.

I’ve been watching how friends and family react to news, and I started thinking about character development in a novel and why it’s so important.

Witnessing a car crash, or the aftermath of a car crash, on TV can be upsetting, or make a person sad, but once the clip is over, everyone focuses on the next news clip.

But, what if someone you know is in the car? Then, I think, most people react a little differently. All of sudden, there is a vested interest in the crash. Were the people hurt? Are they in the hospital? Will they recover?

Why? Because you are personally involved.

I find if I can’t put a novel down, it’s usually because I feel like I know the characters and I care about what happens to them. To me, this means the author has done a great job of developing the characters. As a writer, I think it’s important for me to spend time on developing characters. Then maybe I’ll get lucky, and my readers won’t want to put my book down.

Does Your Writing Give You Nightmares?

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 8 Comments

This is my latest discovery. I’ve been sailing my Lagoon 380 S2 for three years now and never had a bad dream about it. Well, life changes.

My fourth novel, yet to be named, takes place on a sailboat in the Bahamas. So this week, I’ve been dreaming scary dreams about sailing, and it occurred to me it’s because I’m writing a murder mystery set on a boat.

Bad weather, sailing alone, boat malfunctions, crazy people who try to get on my boat . . . and I’m only 20,000 words in. What’s going to happen by the end?

I wonder what Stephen King or Dean Koontz dream about. It can’t be good.

Has your writing changed what you dream about?

The Novel Spreadsheet

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 9 Comments

After completing three novels using my handy-dandy spreadsheet and being 10,000 words into my fourth,  I discovered I was lacking a column.

This far into the game, I thought I would have had my spreadsheet nailed. The joke’s on me.

My first three novels take place in a fictitious ski resort (Stone Mountain) in British Columbia. I needed one location column when I had one town and a bunch of locations within the town. All I needed to note in the location column was where the scene took place within Stone Mountain. That meant on the ski lift, in an office, on a trail, in the forest, in a car, etc.

My fourth novel starts out in Kingston, ON, moves to Ft. Lauderdale, FL, and then makes its way through the Bahamian island chain.

Now, I need to keep track of locations within the new locations. The new column lists the town or island where the scene takes place. The existing column still works and lists where in the town or island the scene happens. This means on a beach, at anchor, in the dinghy, etc.

I guess my spreadsheet will continue to evolve as I write more novels.

Where do Characters Come From?

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 9 Comments

Do you plot or do you let the characters do the plotting?

Each writer is unique in how they create a story. I don’t like to plot the entire story before I write. I find it boring. Once I’ve plotted it, I’m no longer interested in writing the novel.

I don’t want to give the wrong idea about how I write. I’m very organized. I keep track of everything in a spreadsheet. At the end of a day of writing, I make myself update the spreadsheet. It’s not the most exciting thing to do, but since I haven’t plotted the story, it’s important for me to keep track of it.

Sometimes when I update the spreadsheet, the next scene magically announces itself to me. Then I jot a few notes, leave it for the night and have a starting point the next morning.

I have a general idea of what the story is, sometimes I even know the climax, but I never know when or where new characters are going to appear. I don’t base characters on people I know. I find this hard to do as it is restrictive, and again, not that interesting. I like to make them up from scratch.
For me new characters usually appear when I take my protagonist to a new location. Somehow that stimulates my brain.  Mostly, it’s the nastier characters that appear out of nowhere, so I don’t know what that says about me.
Where do your characters come from?

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How I Signed with a Literary Agent

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 7 Comments

I signed with Margaret Hart of the HSW Literary Agency last July (2011). We met at the Humber School for Writers Summer Workshop.

Sounds easy, but it was a long journey to get there.  I attended the Humber School For Writers correspondence course with Joan Barfoot as my mentor. At the completion of that program my novel wasn’t ready to submit to an agent.

Throughout the course I compiled many tips from Joan and used these to improve my writing.

After spending a week with Mary Gaitskill at the summer workshop in 2010, Mary introduced me to Margaret, and she kindly agreed to read Fracture Line. I spent another month updating the manuscript, this time based on comments from Mary Gaitskill, before sending it to Margaret.

Margaret’s first feedback was that she liked the novel, but I had to pick up the pace. I asked a few specific questions about what she meant and then got to work. Four months and a lot of rewriting later, I resubmitted Fracture Line. This time Margaret was happy and she offered me a contract.

There are many ways to sign with a literary agency, but getting connected through the Humber School for Writers sure helped me. If your interested, the summer workshop is starting July 7, 2012.

Crime Writers of Canada

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 1 Comment

At every writer’s conference, I hear how important it is for writers to have a platform, but when you’re just starting out, how do you create a network of people? If you’re a Canadian Crime writer and looking for a way to build your platform and make connections in the writing world, the Crime Writers of Canada (CWC) might be for you.

This is my third year as an associate member, and all of a sudden I realized I belonged to a group that could help me expand my network and connect me with people who write in crime genre.

Now here’s the delightful surprise. I sent LinkedIn invitations to the other CWC members, and I’m getting messages back almost as fast as I can read them.

CWC has professional members (those who have published their work) and associate members (those who are unpublished), and I’ve connected with many authors in both groups.

This members’ list can be found at Bios on the CWC website  along with writer’s webpages and profiles. It’s a great way to explore Canadian crime novels.

I spent the weekend being amazed at how generous people are with their time and how willing they are to add me to their network.

Related articles (just a little insight into the CWC) . . .

Driving Across Canada

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 5 Comments

Ottawa to Winnipeg: 2000 Km of writing time – except when it’s my turn to drive.

The views are spectacular, the roads winding (until you hit the prairies), and there are ample passing lanes.  But what do you do with your time, hour after hour, in the car?

I find my mind wanders and with time to think, I get inundated with ideas. I keep a notebook handy to capture my thoughts. If I’m driving, my husband has to write them down. If only I could get him to write neatly.

Living is such a big country and having family in several provinces, along with the crazy notion that driving is the right way to get there, gives me lots of hours to write. I’ve written entire scenes without noticing what town we passed through, or that maybe we should stop for lunch, or that we are arriving.

As this is posted I am somewhere between Wawa, Ontario and Winnipeg, Manitoba hopefully coming up with some great ideas for my fourth novel.

Interruptions While Writing

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 6 Comments

#writetip

When you write at home do you get interrupted? I’ve heard it said that you wouldn’t get interrupted if you worked in an office. Well, I’ve worked in an office, and I did get interrupted, just not from my family. I think we all get interrupted.

They key for me is to not let it happen at critical moments. At work I could shut my office door. At home, maybe there isn’t an office door.

Here’s what did the trick for me. I explained why a 10 second interruption hurt my writing.

When I’m writing, I hold 2, 3 sometimes 4 ideas in my head at a time. If someone says “Do you know where the (blank – and you can fill in whatever blank is) is?,  the ideas in my head crash to the ground and shatter. I then spend the next idea picking them up and putting them back together again.

This description seemed to work and now I’m left alone unless there is a true emergency.

Now all you need to do is define a true emergency.

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English to German: Translation Process

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 4 Comments

Translation Process

It’s been two days of translation work and we are at the end of Chapter one. Since this is the first time my translator and I have worked together on a project we are carefully working on each sentence.

Our process:

–       Read sentence out loud in English.

–       Read sentence out loud in German.

–       Discuss whether we have it right.

–       Investigate words in two printed dictionaries and three online ones.

–       Agree on changes.

–       Start on next sentence.

I think I might have to stay here all summer! 🙂

As we go along, the work should be faster. We understand each other better and are quicker at deciding what word we want.

A Novel: From English to German

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 8 Comments

The German translation of my novel Fracture Line  has arrived, and it feels like Christmas. It’s exciting to read my novel in another language, but now the hard part begins.

Working with a translator is an interesting process. We plan to spend the week discussing the nuances of each sentence and whether the voice sounds like my writing.

Dialogue is an area that we need to be careful with. I may want the character to sound sad, but in the translation they come off as angry.

And then there is proofreading. I thought proofreading in English was hard. Ha! The joke is on me.

I have a good relationship with my translator and know enough German to read, but I wonder how an author knows their novel has been translated in the manner they intended to write it if they don’t know the language. I guess it’s just one more mystery in the publishing industry.