Five Ways to Write by Scenes, by Susan Oleksiw

Over the last several months I've had various scenes from a projected novel pop into my head. Some I forget, but a few I've noted on a sheet for later consideration--if I ever write this thing. Right now I have other projects to work on. But my practice of keeping notes reminded me that if I do write this mystery, I'll go at it in a specific way, but my way is only one of several options. 

This is not a post about writing as a plotter or a pantser. This is about writing by scenes. When I begin writing a novel, I work out the first scene. I may come back later to change this, revise or alter or discard, but I want the first scene in place before I feel I can continue. I wrote the first scene for my first Joe Silva/Mellingham mystery three times, and discarded all of them. When I'm satisfied with the opening, I write the next scene, and so I proceed, scene by scene, until I reach the end. Along the way I check off the notes I've made, incorporating ideas as I come to the best spot for them. But this isn't the only way to get an entire novel down on paper. Remember the famous line about driving from the East Coast to California when the headlights can see only a few feet ahead? This is the Lawrence Block school of writing. 

I've heard another writer advise writing scenes as they come to you. If you want a fight scene or a love scene, a hiking or climbing scene, write it and file it until you need it. If you've recorded a conversation overheard in a restaurant or on the subway, write that scene and save it. Write the scenes as they appear, and eventually you'll have an entire book. This was the advice once given by John Updike.

Some writers advise writing the last scene first, so you know what you're aiming for. Focus on every detail that will matter in the unmasking of the villain, the sorting out of various lesser crimes, and the realignment of the remaining characters. When you have all this on paper, you can see clearly what has to be accomplished in the preceding pages. Now you can go back to the beginning and following the vague lines to the end. They'll get sharper as you progress. This was the choice of Margaret Mitchell, and a number of others, including Agatha Christie. http://flavorwire.com/401384/authors-on-the-importance-of-writing-the-final-chapter-first/2

There is still another option. If you're concerned about certain subplots, write the series of scenes concerned with only the character in the subplot, from beginning to end, to ensure that the arc of that person's story is clear and relevant. Or, do the reverse and write the main actions of the protagonist, to create an arc you can follow as the spine of the story. For advice on how to do this, go to https://www.livewritethrive.com/2016/08/01/how-to-weave-a-subplot-into-the-structure-of-your-novel/

A fifth way to write by scenes in a crime novel is a variation on the one above. If the story is clear in your imagination, write the major scenes, such as the discovery of the body, identifying or interviewing the chief suspect, a confrontation scene, and the ending. This comes close to writing major scenes as a way of writing out an outline. 

I prefer writing scene by scene in order as they occur in the story because of the freedom this process gives me to explore and discover the story. I dislike being tied to a preconceived plot and story line. Though I always have an idea of where I'm going, I want the freedom to change directions and uncover something better.

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What's in a cover? by Susan Oleksiw

One of the thrills of being a published writer is opening up a box of books and seeing your name on the cover. There’s no better feeling. (Well, perhaps signing a contract.) When I opened the box of free copies for the mass market paperback by Worldwide Mystery for the third Anita Ray novel, For the Love of Parvati, I was both thrilled and intrigued. This is the third edition of this book in the series, and the only thing the covers have in common is the color green.

I look to a cover to tell me what the book is about—violent, romantic, humorous, part of a series, frivolous, historical. If the cover doesn’t match the content, I’m disappointed and may never read anything by that author again. I put a lot of faith in the cover as well as the first few pages. I worry about the covers of my books, especially the Anita Ray series.

Not everyone wants to visit the sometimes chaotic world of India, so I want the covers to draw in the reader, to show the beauty of the landscape and the culture. The three covers for For the Love of Parvati have succeeded in conveying some of the qualities I want readers to get while reading.

The design on the jacket for the hardcover was done by Deirdre Wait, for Five Star. I got to see it before final approval, and I loved the cover. Every detail related to something in the story, but nothing could be considered a spoiler for the reader. The images captured the atmosphere of this part of South India during the monsoon, as well as the isolation of an old estate in the hills.

The cover for the trade paperback used a format that a designer worked out for me. She found a frame, in this case a marble inlay window, in which I could place an appropriate photo I’d taken in India. I gave her a few images and asked her to pick the one she thought would work best within the archway. Once again, the designer chose an old mansion outside a city, though you can’t really tell that from the cover. (For those who have looked closely and might be wondering, the building is now part of a school, which explains the blue sign on an upper balcony.)

The third cover, for the mass market paperback from Worldwide Mystery surprised me. It was different from the first two, but fit the story perfectly. The cover shows an old wooden bridge crossing a wide, rocky river in the hills. The remote mountain location, the wild water below the bridge, and the gray monsoon sky promise the story within.

Covers go through lots of permutations before a designer is fully satisfied. I was fortunate to have a chance to review a sample cover for the first Anita Ray book in the series, Under the Eye of Kali. I made a few suggestions, which the designer agreed with, and I was fully satisfied with the results.

I’ve had successful covers for the Anita Ray books, perhaps because the setting of South India inspires artists and designers, and there are now thousands of images available for use. The photos chosen for my books have always been spot on. But the designers have stayed close to the story line, and that means the covers are true to the story inside.

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Writing and Using Dialogue, by Susan Oleksiw

When I was struggling with writing a particular scene in my first mystery, Murder in Mellingham, I recalled Dorothea Brande’s advice to read writers who have mastered the skill you’re struggling with. If your prose is terse, read someone more expansive, such as James Lee Burke. If your sentences and paragraphs run on too long, read someone who has mastered the skill of brevity, such as Agatha Christie.

The standard guideline for dialogue is brevity with a purpose. Conversation between characters can easily become a way of dumping information, telling the reader about important events instead of showing them. Mystery writers tend to tell the solution to the crime in the final chapters, making the story more talky than action. (And I confess to falling into this trap.) In Technique in Fiction, Robie Macauley uses the final lines of James Joyce’s story “The Dead” to illustrate the impact a few carefully crafted lines of dialogue can have.

In the Anita Ray series, I use dialogue to develop the setting of South India as well as reveal character. In When Krishna Calls, Anita questions both educated and uneducated Indians, each with his or her own dialectical peculiarities. The rhythm of Indian languages is recognizable in English, and gives me the chance to alter the “feel” of speech. In addition, because of the preferred grammatical forms of South Indian languages, characters have a variety of ways of concealing the truth that only sound awkward to foreigners, introducing an extra layer of confusion and deception.

One of the best examples of the use of dialogue is in the opening scene of The Maltese Falcon. Dashiell Hammett introduces Sam Spade and his secretary, Effie Perine, through a sharp, swift dialogue that is classic and known to everyone who loves crime fiction. But even though this passage is often chosen to illustrate how perfectly dialogue reveals character, it also reveals the ideal balance between prose and dialogue. The five lines of speech are set into one and a half pages of description of the room, the people, and activity. The ratio of dialogue to prose varies throughout the book, with the amount of dialogue increasing.

To understand what dialogue can do in a novel, the reader only need pick up Gregory McDonald’s first mystery, Fletch. The author wanted it to be 98 percent dialogue, and he feels he achieved that goal. The challenge, of course, is to use speech between individuals to establish not only character but also structure for plot and action. McDonald has called himself a post-cinematic writer, by which he means that because we as readers already have so much visual information, the writer doesn’t need to spend time or verbiage on describing a street in Paris at midnight—we’ve seen this street a hundred times before in the movies. We know the world fictional characters live in. If we don’t, a few words will set the stage, drawing on what we do know. This approach places a heavy burden on dialogue to inform, reveal, and move the story forward. Not many writers have followed in McDonald’s path.

When I work on the dialogue of a scene, I think of the best examples I’ve read, but I also think of something I read by Isaac Bashevis Singer, who said, “. . . when I have to hide something, I let the characters speak.”

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