The winner of the pretty blue pincushion is…

Chautona!

Congratulations!

Send me your mailing information and I will get it sent off to you!

Evidence of Mercy, by Terri Blackstock, read by Kris Falkner

Evidence of Mercy, the first book in Terri Blackstock’s “Sun Coast Chronicles,” opens directly into action, with only a brief prologue to set the scene. The initial and unenthusiastic meeting of Lynda Barrett and Jake Stevens is immediately followed by a terrifying flight which they fully expect to end in their deaths.  Ms. Blackstock uses the crisis effectively to establish their characters and reveal them as people who are both “alone” outside of their careers.

She also did a good job of timing the entrance of the secondary characters, Paige Varner and her daughter Brianna, again conveying a lot of background information in a very short chapter. The introduction of a new kind of panic to the current emergency keeps the anticipation high when it might otherwise go flat, since intelligent readers already know that the main characters are unlikely to die in the first three chapters of the book.

Paige and Brianna’s problems keep the story actively moving forward while Lynda and Jake are healing. This is a nice combination.  Ms. Blackstock holds all the threads of the story straight, braiding them together so gradually that the reader isn’t surprised by the truth.  The mystery is about the process of the solution rather than the identity and motivations of the villain.

The spiritual element is handled well, with realistic characterization. Lynda is a Christian who got busy. She still believes, but her church attendance and intimate connection to God have been allowed to lapse under the pressure of a hectic work schedule.  When her spiritual renewal (and a heavy dose of survivor’s guilt) leads her to assume responsibility for Jake as well as Paige and Brianna, the reader is given a clear understanding of her mixed motivations. Spiritual development in the other characters is gradual and not unrealistic. The angst over moral issues at the end of the story was a neat twist, and I was touched by Lynda’s acknowledgment that she hadn’t been concerned about Jake’s salvation when she thought they would both die.

The secondary characters were good. Some of them could have been developed further, but perhaps she plans to do so in subsequent Sun Coast Chronicles books. One of the nurses was particularly human, and I think that the character of the villain’s lawyer was also realistically drawn.  I could sense his irritation rising steadily throughout the story, until it reached the point where it became self-preservation to sever the connection.

Of the main characters, Lynda seemed the most genuine to me, but there were some very effective moments for Jake. His rage, manifested in a physical outburst of the only kind available to him — throwing things — was something I can imagine in a man in that situation. Later, his refusal to believe that he can be of any use in protecting the women also rings true. I did have a little trouble with the rapidity of his personality change, however, from the arrogant man – especially one who had just been crippled by a murder attempt -  to the sensitive one, even right away in the hospital.

The difficulties and humiliation faced by an abused wife, especially one with a child and no family support, were honestly presented in Paige.  Her admission that she was continually tempted to return to her husband was particularly realistic. I was pleased that Ms. Blackstock avoided the too-common error of solving Paige’s problems by placing her in a new relationship. Her solution was perfect.

It was helpful to have Mike there, so Jake wasn’t the lone male in their little group.  The growing friendships between the different characters was well-balanced.  I anticipate that the main police characters will be further developed in future stories. They were okay. The immediate and continuing use of their first names in address by the women struck a jarring note, making them seem somehow less professional.

I was also glad to see Ms. Blackstock keeping the various medical staff, legal authorities and investigative agencies involved in the daily lives of the characters.  The activities and personalities of those minor characters were consistent with what I would expect in such a situation, and the fact that the author didn’t make them all uniform was impressive.

One of Ms. Blackstock’s strongest points is her handling of difficult, distant family relationships. Jake’s relationship with his mother is convincing.  There is no easy reconciliation or miraculous emotional transformation, but it doesn’t feel hopeless. I’ve seen this in several of her books; it’s an effective establishment of a personal history so the main characters have more depth without cluttering up the story with a lot of people unnecessary to the plot.

On the other hand, I find that Ms. Blackstock has difficulty with children. In Brianna and other juvenile characters, there is inconsistency in age-appropriate behaviors, abilities and activities. At times, Brianna behaves like a normal three-year-old, and at others, she is given dialogue and a level of understanding more suited to a seven-year-old.

The reader, Kris Falkner, did a good job with all of the voices except that of the child, but I think that was due to the difficulties I mentioned earlier rather than her own acting skills. She was a little breathy and dramatic, especially at first, but as she settled into the story, her pacing became pleasant and I was not distracted from the story by her personal voice.

I liked this book and believe it was well-crafted. I recommend it for readers looking for Christian fiction with a little more plot than the average romance.

Published by Books In Motion, 2006

 

Read to me…

I admit it… not all of my daily activities require a lot of brain power. I’m really not much of a TV watcher, and I do need to keep my eyes on the sewing machine, knitting needles, dust mop, or road, so the perfect solution for me is audiobooks. I love being read to, and I can usually absorb all of the story while I work. Sometimes I do have to back up and re-listen to part of the story, but not too often.

The best source for audiobooks in cassette, CD and downloadable formats, is my public library. I have access to thousands of books there. I do all of my browsing online and order what I want from the comfort of my own home. The downloads are my favorite, because I don’t have to leave the house to pick them up.

Downloads can be transferred to an mp3 player or listened to from the computer. The mp3 player is nice for listening while I clean house or work out, too. My car only has a cassette player, so I am always glad to find those “vintage” audiobooks.

There are a few online sources for public domain audiobooks in downloadable formats. Most of them are read by volunteers and the quality varies. I have purchased some audiobooks, too, just as I buy books to keep from some of my favorite authors.

Mostly, however, I listen while I sew. As a professional quiltmaker and dressmaker, I spend many long hours in my studio. I associate some finished projects with certain books (and vice versa!)  In recognition of the fact that reading and sewing go so well together, I am giving away this sweet little pincushion!

It’s a dainty little thing, 3 1/2″ across, trimmed with vintage buttons and lace. It’s filled with fine clean woodshavings, cut fresh for me by my dad, when I told him I was making pincushions. It’s the perfect material for keeping your pins and needles sharp.  It’s even pretty underneath:

Here’s the deal: You get one entry for adding this blog to your “follow” or “reader” list. Just comment here to tell me you did it. I trust you. You will also get one additional entry for each comment you leave on other posts here. (One comment per post.)

I will draw a winner’s name by random.org on January 29th.

Reviewing audiobooks

I listen to a LOT of audio books. Yes, it counts as reading. I like being read to, and I can listen while I work or drive. I absorb the story quite well, especially if the reader is a talented actor. Reviewing the audiobooks without a text copy is difficult, however, unless I scribble notes as I go (which is hard when you are working or driving.) I think that for future reviews, I will try to get a copy of the books as well, to refer to while writing. I’m preparing to review the two posthumously-published Dorothy Sayers mystery books and a few others, both fiction and non-fiction. I have listened to them, but now I need to run to the library.

Genres on my Bookshelves:

I just finished re-reading “Madam, Will You Talk?” by Mary Stewart. I have read it several times before, as I have nearly all of Ms. Stewart’s books. I did not like the Merlin series or her newer books, but the older ones are a soothing bedtime indulgence. While they are, as she intended, fast-moving and entertaining, and they are generally very predictable, they are pleasant reading. The settings are varied – always interesting and accurately-portrayed.  The reader knows that the virtuous heroine will be rewarded for her courage and perseverance and the conniving villain will come to a bad end. The supporting actors are accordingly good or bad.  Innocents are defended. Justice triumphs. She uses words well and wraps up her loose ends without making bullet statements.

Mary Stewart has always been hesitant to categorize her novels, uncomfortable naming them thrillers, or mysteries, or romances. She says, “I’d rather just say that I write novels, fast-moving stories that entertain. To my mind there are really only two kinds of novels, badly written and well written. Beyond that, you cannot categorize…Can’t I say that I just write stories? ‘Storyteller’ is an old and honorable title, and I’d like to lay claim to it.”

Today, her novels would probably be classified as “romantic suspense.”

What Romance Fans Want
Readers of romances want a love story and a happy ending. The Romance Writers of America have used these expectations to define the romance genre. Romance fans also want to find intriguing characters within these novels.
What Mystery Fans Want
Whether their interests focus on suspense or on detection, mystery fans expect a strong plot. They also share the romance readers expectation of a happy ending. Instead of conclusions in which love conquers all, mystery fans want to see good triumph over evil.

This is probably the genre of any story I might write, but for my own reading pleasure, I like mystery stories from the Golden Age of Detective Stories because they are so elegantly written and generally free of smut or offensive language. Many are serial, and there is usually one book with a nice tidy romance, to get the hero and heroine tidily married off.  The good guys are good and the bad guys are bad. The plots are puzzles to be solved within a set of “rules” that define the genre:

Certain conventions and clichés were established that limited any surprises on the part of the reader to the details of the plot and, primarily, to the identity of the murderer. The majority of novels of that era were “whodunits”, and several authors excelled, after misleading their readers successfully, in revealing the least likely suspect convincingly as the villain. There was also a predilection for certain casts of characters and certain settings, with the secluded English country house and its upper-class inhabitants being very common.

The rules of the game – and Golden Age mysteries were considered games – were codified in 1929 by Ronald Knox. According to Knox, a detective story

“must have as its main interest the unraveling of a mystery; a mystery whose elements are clearly presented to the reader at an early stage in the proceedings, and whose nature is such as to arouse curiosity, a curiosity which is gratified at the end.”

Knox’s “Ten Commandments” (or “Decalogue”) are as follows:

1. The criminal must be mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to know.
2. All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.
3. Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.
4. No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end.
5. No Chinaman must figure in the story.
6. No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.
7. The detective himself must not commit the crime.
8. The detective is bound to declare any clues which he may discover.
9. The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal from the reader any thoughts which pass through his mind: his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.
10. Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.

This orderly type of story was eventually abandoned in favor of a more “psychological” story, usually about the hard lives of the lower classes of society, their oppression and the traumas that had led them to a life of sordid crime. The age of clearly defined good and evil was over.  We were supposed to feel sorry for the villains, who were only victims of their environment. I don’t buy it and I don’t read them.

The Cozy Mystery genre is a modern version of the Golden Age Detective Stories, with less excitement than Romantic Suspense but without the tedious angst of psychological thrillers.  Many of these books are well-written, but none come close to the sophisticated language skills and vocabulary of an earlier generation.  They are written for popular reading.

The heroes of such stories are usually amateur detectives who often have a college degree and use their life experiences as a tool for solving crimes. Often they have a spouse, lover, friend or family member working for the police force, who can therefore provide them with important information about a case to which they would otherwise not have access.

The authorities usually dismiss the detective as little more than a nosy gossip and barely register their presence. However, this makes it easy for the detective to eavesdrop on their conversations at the scene of the crime and thus gather clues.

There is usually an array of eccentric supporting characters, who provide light relief and are generally very likeable.

Cozies very rarely focus on sex, profanity or violence. The murders take place off stage, and are often relatively bloodless (e.g. poisoning), while sexual activity (if any) between characters is only ever gently implied and never directly addressed.

Cozy mysteries are booming and there is considerable cross-pollination with other genres of writing such as writing about hobbies, pets or cooking. Culinary mysteries are a type of cozy mystery focusing on the world of cooking, chefing or catering and usually including recipes. Associated with culinary mysteries are coffee house, tea house and wine country mysteries, and herbalist mysteries. Antiquing, interior decoration or fashion may feature. There are also animal mysteries; quilting, knitting, beading and other hobby mysteries; holiday themed mysteries; vacation mysteries; real estate mysteries; matchmaker mysteries; psychic and other paranormal mysteries; and combinations of all of these. As can be seen, cozies tend to be female-focused.

I do read some cozy mysteries. My favorites are by Charlotte MacLeod/Alisa Craig and Dorothy Cannell, both of whom write beautifully. They have their places on my personal shelves, along with some other favorite writers.

I have a very specific collection of books in paperback. They are so much easier to carry around or read in bed than hardcover. (I do have quite a few hardcover books in a case in my bedroom, but they tend to collect dust.) These books get read and re-read, until they have to have their spines taped. Sometimes the pages are loose or torn, too, before I can track down replacements. Most of them are pretty old.

Other books can be borrowed from the library or purchased and passed on, but my favorite authors have a permanent place on the special shelves in my bedroom. My husband made shelves that are just the right size for paperbacks.  There are hundreds of books throughout the house, in bookcases in every room, but these are mine. Old friends. Their stories are worth re-reading. When I need a new book at bedtime, I can pick just the right “flavor” to suit my taste for that evening. None are boring, but the graceful and polished language composes my mind for slumber.

Sparks of Inspiration

So I have this friend. I’ve known her online for about ten years, but I’ve never seen her “in real life.” There are a few of us, in fact, who met on message forums for homeschooling Christian women.  It’s interesting to see how we have all changed since retiring from our careers in homeschooling. We have grandbabies. We love God, our adult children and our husbands, but we’ve gone on to new and different personal things.  We didn’t just “retire” — we “graduated.”  In general, most of the time, we’re eagerly moving forward to a new stage of life.

My friend. A while ago, one of her children married. In this amazing Internet world, she invited all of us on a virtual shopping trip for a “Mother of the Bride” dress. We looked at so many varied dresses that I ended up hopelessly befuddled. The dress I had first endorsed ended up looking depressingly dowdy to me. It was another indicator of the changes in my life.  I haven’t had much interest in clothing. I prefer to be warm and decently covered. I have a few pair of jeans, a hundred turtleneck sweaters, and a great canvas barn coat, handed down to me by a friend after she’d got several years’ wear out of it. I’ve worn it for years. One day I realized that I no longer have a barn. Haven’t had one in a while. I looked around town and saw a lot of black wool. Hm.  Maybe next year I’ll get a new coat.

OH… this friend. She’s dropped a lot of weight since her retirement and is looking pretty good these days. After a lot of unenthusiastic shopping, seeing only lackluster gowns, she eschewed the chiffon and the brocade and chose an awesome dress. It was short. It was strapless (nearly.) It was purple. She liked it. It made her happy. She looked hot.

That episode has been at the back of my mind, being mulled, for a while.  When my character Margaret was shopping for a “wedding” dress, at a similar point in her life, it was a spark of inspiration to me. Margaret’s daughter thought tea-length ivory lace would be appropriate. That was where I had started, too, when we were shopping for that mother-of-the-bride dress, but that dress didn’t fit. Margaret had slimmed down and buffed up and purple strapless fit just fine.

Mulling

I’ve been accused of thinking too long (sometimes by myself.) Or perhaps I just have commitment issues.  When I think I might want to do something, whether it’s painting walls or buying new dinnerware, I look and then mull. I had paint chips stuck to the walls of my house for over six months (okay, it was closer to a year in the bedroom) before I was ready to commit to the colors I had chosen. Same with the dishes I had fallen in love with at Kohl’s.  The box of hair dye sat on the bathroom counter for three weeks before I shoved it in the back of the cupboard. I’m not going there yet.

So far, stories are the same way. I have to think about them. Even if they spring fully-feathered into my mind, they require mulling before I start the official Excel file, let alone the Word document. Almost immediately after I started working as a caregiver to the elderly, I knew I could write an interesting story about that stage of life. A few months ago, I saw a news story on television about a man convicted of fraud, and how the fallout had impacted his innocent family and employees.  I have written a list of characters for that one and even several pages of the actual story now, on paper, but I’m not sure I am ready to commit to the keyboard.  Somehow, in spite of the fact that pen and paper is tangible and the electronic documents can be deleted with a few light taps on a mouse, typing makes it seem more audacious.  As if I am teetering between confidence and arrogance, assuming that my creative ideas are worth setting down.

It’s different from nonfiction. Concrete facts and ideas, supported by experience and knowledge, are much easier to share. That’s more about teaching. Fiction is creating.  Scary.

This is the tale that never ends…

A couple years ago, at the nagging insistence urging recommendation of a few friends, I signed up for the National Novel Writing Month challenge: Write a 50,000-word story in 30 days. I signed up ahead of time, so I had a few weeks to think about a plot. For a while, I couldn’t come up with one. I just had nothing to say! No creativity. No “need” to write, as they say real authors have. No inspiration to share a story. Then one day, I saw it. I was surprised at how easily it came to me – plot, characters, setting… unfolding in my mind. I’m not that abstract a thinker, so I opened an excel file to keep track of it.  Hey… it’s who I am. I am also a rule-follower, most of the time, so I didn’t start writing the story until November 1, but by then I had an outline (again, it’s who I am.) I had several pages in my excel file, for everything from hair color to names of their parents to what kind of car they drive to what they liked to eat for breakfast. Actually, that was just one of the 6 or 7 pages.

Anyhow…

I hit 50,000 words in about 10 days. I was at 85,000 by the end of the month, and I finally wrapped it up 18 months later at 175,000 words. At about 20,000 words, I realized that I could never let my husband read this story. At 40,000, I decided that only complete strangers should ever read it. At 75,000 words, I was finally finished with the back story and ready to get started on the plot. At 100,000 words, I gave up the pretense that this wasn’t a personal catharsis.  I had two people (neither of whom I have met in real life) reading it as I went along, and they were enthusiastic. At 130,000 words, I was starting to be embarrassed. According to fictionfactor.com’s discussion of book lengths, I was well into the “epic” category:

Novel

50,000 -110,000

Most print publishers prefer a minimum word count of around 70,000 words for a first novel, and some even hesitate for any work shorter than 80,000. Yet any piece of fiction climbing over the 110,000 word mark also tends to give editors some pause. They need to be sure they can produce a product that won’t over-extend their budget, but still be enticing enough to readers to be saleable. Imagine paying good money for a book less than a quarter-inch thick?

Epics and Sequels

Over 110,000 words

If your story extends too far over the 110,000 mark, perhaps consider where you could either condense the story to only include relevant details, or lengthen it to span out into a sequel, or perhaps even a trilogy. (Unless, of course, you’re Stephen King – then it doesn’t matter what length your manuscript is – a publisher is a little more lenient with an established author who has a well-established readership)

I like my story, but it’s not epic. Of course, I won’t be pursuing publication, but it still seemed embarrassing. At that point, I decided to finish it. I wrapped it all up, carefully using a multi-level timeline chart in my excel file. The problem is, it felt rushed to me. I felt like I had “dropped” a few characters. Not surprising, since I had a lot of characters. I like or hate them all, so I didn’t want to leave any of them dangling.  And I just couldn’t make a realistic, happy ever after, warm fuzzy ending for Margaret and Rob and their family. I did the best I could, without compromising credibility. But neither did I want a bad ending. Personally, if I am going into invest time in reading a (very long) story, it had darn well better have a good ending. But this is absolutely NOT the kind of story I read. Too much dialog, angst, and realistic but messy relationships. It has men who talk in real meaningful conversations.

So I finished it up. And disliked it. My two readers liked it, or maybe they were just glad it was finally over. They are not really similar in tastes. One woman thought a particular part was “spicy” and the other, although she phrased it more kindly, thought it was a little lame. I think they were starting to get a little nervous that there wouldn’t be a happy ending. But it was over.

I started a new story for NaNo 2010. I like it. It’s probably better than the first one, but I didn’t finish it in 30 days, because I was working full-time for the first time ever. I still keep at it, off and on, hand writing in my spare time at work, but it doesn’t suck me in like the world of Margaret and Rob. And in that very boring free time at work, since I had finished my epic and wasn’t all that interested in the second story, I created an outline for a third. It might be pretty good, too. I have written quite a bit but haven’t typed it up yet. And yet, the siren song of Rob and Margaret lures me back.

Then a young friend (also someone I only know online and have never met in person) was looking for suggestions for kindle books for her very long flight and down time during a trip to the other side of the world. After some trepidation, because my first two readers were women in their 40′s, like me and Margaret, I asked if she was interested in reading the one I had written. I sent it to her in .pdf format, so she could read it on her Kindle, and she read it. She sent me emails at first, telling me how much she was loving it, and then she stopped. I knew she had run into complications in her travel plans and was very busy, so I didn’t worry too much. Finally, though, after I sent her two emails hoping that she had enjoyed the story, she responded. She said that while she had devoured the first part of the book, the last 50-75 pages felt anti-climactic. When I probed further, and got her on IM, she shared that she felt disconnected from the characters and story in that part of the book. She said it needed more detail and character details. It felt rushed. She said to not worry about the length of the story. She would read it all over again even if it went to 200,000.

Well, WOOT! Encouragement and even a recommendation that I return to Margaret-and-Rob-Land. I could write that story forever. It’s funny. It’s sad. When I reread it, it makes me laugh hard and cry with tears rolling down my face … how vain is that????

Writing is very interesting. I never thought I would have anything to say. If anything, I would write nonfiction. I should be cleaning house, sewing or going to work, but I want to sit at the computer and type and type and type. When I am at work, I write in notebooks. When I am at the gym, I am mentally reviewing or planning bits of the story.

As I said, the second book story is probably the best of the three and will wrap up neatly in less than 75,000. It, too, makes me laugh hard and then cry.  It will inevitably have a sad ending, but there might be a happy romantic ending, if I can bring myself to make it happen. We’ll see…. But I’m going to leave those characters in limbo for a while and go visit Rob and Margaret. See you later.