Saturday was the busiest day at the Bloody Words Conference that took place in Toronto from June 1-3, 2012. Sessions ran every hour from 9:00 AM to noon and, after a break for lunch, 1:30 – 5:30 PM. The evening featured a banquet with speeches and awards.

Each hour offered three choices. My first selection that morning was a panel of agents, two from Canada and two from the United States. The format was largely question and answer. One audience member asked if US agents were prejudiced against novels set in Canada. All four answered no; a good story is a good story. They also agreed that one of the first things an agent does when she receives an appealing query is to Google the writer to check out her web presence.

Next, I opted for the session with Gayle Lynds, this year’s Bloody Words International Guest of Honour. At the conference in Victoria last year I’d found it interesting and informative to listen to an author at the peak of his or her game. Lynds was no exception.

Lynds writes thrillers, which were the conference focus this year. Do you know the difference between a mystery and a thriller? Mysteries are about whodunnit, which is typically revealed as late as possible in the book. In a thriller, you usually know the bad guy right off.  Reader engagement comes from the suspense of wondering if the bad or good guy will win.

I haven’t written a thriller, but Lynd’s topic “Nine Secrets to Writing a Bestselling Thriller” are worth considering for all kinds of writing. The secrets are:

1. Characters. Larger-than-life characters that grow larger in the story. Or ordinary characters thrust into extraordinary situations who pull themselves up by their bootstraps. From the beginning, the hero is in jeopardy. You also need worthy villains who have at least one redeeming quality to make them real.

2. Know Your Dramatic Question. This gives you the spine of your book. What does the hero want? What does the vllain want? Connect those questions with OR. An example: will a mad scientist unleash a virus that destroys the human race or will an introverted bookkeeper save the world?

3. High Stakes.  With the heroine having a personal involvement.

4. Rivetting Concept. An idea so catchy that the book sells itself and makes the story exciting. Train your brain to think high concept.

5. Multiple Viewpoint. Learn the point of view rules so you can break them. With multiple viewpoints, when you come to a dialogue conflict between two characters it’s exciting for the reader, who unconsiously roots for both to get his way, even the villain.

6. Exotic Setting. But this can also be something familiar we learn more deeply about. (I wonder: does this rule and rule #1 cover just about everyone and everything?)

7. Mood and Tone. Get the story rolling before introducing flashbacks or a lot of description. Portray exciting scenes and description through the eyes of your point of view character.

8. Suspense. Compress time. Try to cut down the number of days in your story. Start the book with an action, not with weather or a character awakening from sleep.

9. Finale. A big book needs a satisfying ending. If there is violence at the start, there should be violence at the end. Tie up all key story threads. If you can’t tie up a subplot by the end, you might not need it.

Lynds added that the average writer has four unfinished novels in the drawer before his first novel is published and spends ten years writing before getting published. Is that encouraging or not? It depends where you are on the ten year and novels-in-the-drawer slope.

I continued my plan of hearing authors at their peak by following Lynds’ session with the Conversation with Linwood Barclay, the Bloody Words Canadian Guest of Honour.  While Lynds writes macro thrillers – ones with large characters and international settings – Barclay is a master of the micro or domestic thriller, that is, thrillers about ordinary people in geographically confined locales dealing with an extraordinary situations. Author Stephen King has become a big Barclay fan. King called Barclay’s most recent novel “Never Look Away” one of the best books he’s read this year.

Linwood Barclay began his writing career as a humour columnist for the Toronto Star. Not surprisingly, he’s a funny and entertaining speaker. His first four novels were a comic series. When they weren’t mega-hits, on his agent’s advice, Barclay switched to darker material. He also sets his novels in the USA partly for marketing reasons, but he was born in the US, regularly visits his US relatives and his first publishing interest came from US publishers. It made me think I should have been more strategic in my writing choices.

The interviewer asked Barclay what dark secrets in his life inform his material. Barclay answered that when he was 16 his father died. He may be working out this experience in his writing, since his stories tend to be about losing people.  Another question: Why did Barclay go from writing a series to writing stand alone books? With stand alones, you can raise the stakes for your protagonists and do worse things to them. In a series, your character can’t repeatedly have the worst day of his life (What about Jack Bauer from 24?). In a series, with each book, half the work is already done – ie. the main characters and other details are created – but you are limited in what you can do.

After Barclays’s session, I ran into two women who had attended my Thursday talk at the Pape-Danforth library. They invited me to lunch with five other writers. Conferences are about making new acquaintances as well as sessions.

When lunch was done, we all hurried back to the Hilton for an equally informative afternoon. Stay tuned.

The Bloody Words mystery conference got off to a different start for me. Before I left Calgary for Toronto, I received an e-mail from Patricia Gouthro, a professor at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax. Patricia asked if she could interview me as part of a research study exploring the connections between lifelong learning, citizenship and the craft of fiction writing. Her hope was that this research would point out the benefits and examine ways of supporting emerging and established Canadian writers.

Patricia noted I would be attending the conference. I assume she got my name from the list of Bloody Words “usual suspects” attendees posted on the Crime Writers of Canada website.  Since she would also be at the conference, we agreed to meet Friday morning, before events began.  She sent me information about her research as well as questions she would ask. Basically, these related to my writing history, a subject I’ve spoken on a lot this past year.

We met in Patricia’s suite at the Toronto Downtown Hilton, where the Bloody Words conference was held. Patricia taped the interview and said she would send me a transcript later. I gave her permission to quote me by name. However, if I discover I said anything I don’t want attributed to me, I can ask her to quote me anonymously.

The interview took until lunch time. I looked outside the Hilton front doors, saw it was pouring rain and decided to explore Toronto’s underground city. I followed the tunnels to the Eaton Centre and ate at the food court, the site of a shooting the following day. Welcome to life in the big city. And yet, I felt comfortable walking alone through downtown Toronto that night due to all the people out.

After lunch, I attended the conference’s first workshop of the weekend: How to Schmooze Like a Pro. Melodie Campbell gave us tips on using small talk to make others feel comfortable, how to dress for success and table etiquette. One piece of advice I applied right after the session related to business cards recieved: write something distinguishing about the person and the event attended on the back. This avoids the common problem of later looking at a mass of collected cards and thinking, “Who was that?”

The Schmoozing workshop was followed by the Crime Writers of Canada Annual General Meeting. I hadn’t attended their AGM before and found it a good way to put faces to the names of the organization’s movers and shakers. I learned the current membership is 340 people and next year there will be a new Arthur Ellis Awards category, for best crime novella (8,000-12,000 words). I recently drafted a mainstream short story of this length. Is there a way to insert a crime?

Since the rain let up during the AGM, I walked the ten minutes to the apartment I was renting near the Eaton Centre. After some down time, I returned for the Meet and Greet and evening sessions. Through the weekend, there was a choice of three sessions in every hour time slot. My first option was How to Make an E-book. This is virgin territory for me, so I learned a lot. The panelists inspired me to try out the process – some day – by setting up one of my published short stories for sale on Amazon or Smashwords (the two basic systems).  They recommended starting with a short story, as a learning tool. With so few reprint markets for my published stories, what do I have to lose?

My panel, called Finally a Bride, followed. Four of us talked to a full room about our experiences of finding a publisher for our first novels and weathering the rejection process.  To fit the theme, our table was decorated with paper wedding cakes and bouquets, which we tossed to the audience at the end.

I could have stayed for a third session as well as a play reading that went on into the night, but I didn’t want to tire myself for the next day packed with sessions and an evening banquet. I went back to the apartment for a rest and awoke the next morning, raring to continue.

Here I am surfacing after almost a month away in Ontario, New Brunswick and Maine. I took my laptop on this trip and thought I might blog occasionally while away. Not surprisingly, I found no opportunity or inclination to blog – or do any other kind of writing.

The Toronto portion of the trip was part Deadly Fall business. I attended the Bloody Words Mystery Writing Conference and did talks at three branches of the Toronto Public Library and at the public library in Beeton, an hour north of Toronto.

My first talk was at a Scarborough branch, near the home of my sister- and brother-in-law, with whom I spent the first two days.  Bernice, Bill and my husband, Will, came to the talk. Their presence, along with the librarian’s, swelled the attendance to nine. As we waited for people to trickle in, the early-bird attendee asked a question. The next arrival picked up the thread; so did the next and next one. I answered questions for over an hour and never got around to my speech, although the questions more or less touched on my prepared material.

The next day was Beeton. As it happened, a street fair was going on that Saturday afternoon; the library on the main street was located smack in the middle of the fair.  Outside the library entrance, the librarians set up an attractive poster announcing the event.

I hoped for a sudden downpour at 2:00 PM to drive people in; there wasn’t much chance  of that given the clear blue sky. Still, the event drew a dozen people who enjoyed a generous snack of grapes, cookies and tea.

This time I went through my speech, followed by questions. Will thought this worked better than the previous day’s straight Q & A approach.

I spent the night at the home of Catherine Jackson, a high school acquaintance I reconnected with on facebook. Many thanks to Catherine and her husband, David, for their terrific hospitality in their historic home, for inviting other Lachine High alumni over, for setting up the speaking event, putting up posters and getting Deadly Fall into their local library.

After a few days of relaxing with friends Kitchener, I spoke at the TPL Avenue branch.  I began by asking the attendees if they were there as mainly readers or writers. Three said they were writing, so I tailored the presentation toward writing. A couple of them madly took notes.

The last presenation took place two days later at the Pape/Danforth branch. Will and I began the day with a walk from our downtown accommodation to the largely Greek neighbourhood, where we met our sons for lunch at a pizza restaurant. The Pape-Danforth afternoon “Tea and Murder” gathering is a monthly event, although the librarian told me afterwards that my appearance drew a number of outsiders. In contrast to the previous talks, people were lined up to get in. The packed room pumped me up and ended the four sessions on a high note.

The following day, the conference began. I was glad to shift from the role of speaker to simple attendee. More about the conference in the next blog post.

May is National Crime Writing Month. Who knew? CBC Canada Writes is posting daily, short writing tips by Canadian crime writers, including Giles Blunt, Debra Purdy Kong, Joy Fielding and Louise Penny.

For the past few weeks I’ve been working on a long short story and finished it Monday. Long short story seems a contradictory descriptor – like jumbo shrimp. My story is around 13,000 words – half way to novella length and five or six times longer than the average short story published today.

Not that there is an average. Markets range from postcards-size to, in theory, unlimited until the story is clearly a novella or would take up too many pages in the magazine.

In my first creative writing workshop some twenty years ago, the instructor asked us to hand in stories of around 5,000 words; he said that anything less than that wouldn’t have enough meat. This primed me to write short stories around that size until I discovered how hard they were to get published. I reduced my typical story length to a more marketable 3,000 words, which is still way too high, today, for many appealing markets and contests, such as the CBC Literary Awards

Why this short story shrinkage? I think the reason is practical. Most short stories are published by literary magazines, which recieve tons of worthy submissions. Who can blame them for preferring to allocate x number of pages to 3,4,5,6 writers than xxxx number to a single one?

So, what will I do with my jumbo shrimp? For starters, put it aside. Then, revise and see if anyone wants to publish the whole creature or parts of it that might stand alone. This story’s been rumbling around in my head for the past three years; it feels good to get it out of there and onto the page. And now, with my published short story credits, I have enough material to start thinking of a story collection.

Personal deadlines work for me.  They prompt me to get started on my writing project so I have a chance of reaching my goal and keep me going as I approach the deadline.

In early January, I began the second draft of my novel-in-progress. My deadline was the end of February, when I planned to leave on a one week beach vacation.

I knew that with reasonable effort during that block of seven weeks I could reach the mid-point of the book. Since I like to stop at turning points, should I set the work aside in the middle or move forward? The latter, I decided, as the chapters rolled along. The more I could do before my break, the less to tackle later.

I worked on the novel almost every day. After all, it was winter and, while a mild one for Calgary, not ideal weather for playing outside.  How do people write if they live in a continuously beautiful climate? At a certain point, I realized it might be possible to finish the draft before the trip. I pushed myself harder and made it.

It felt good to be on holiday with draft #2 under my belt and relaxing to come back and not have to plunge right into writing. My tasks until the next deadline – late May – are to get manuscripts of draft #2 to my trusted readers, process their numerous comments, make minor amendments to the draft, do research for the novel, submit some short stories and poems to markets and, I hope, write a short story I’ve been mulling for several years. If there’s time leftover, I’ll start revising another novel-in-progress I set aside a couple of years ago.

These goals are less singular and focussed than completing a novel draft. I can see it will be tempting to slack off during Calgary’s spring, which already feels like it’s here.

Happy daylight savings time.

Last week, I spent a fascinating afternoon and evening at the University of Calgary, speaking to students in the English department. Instructor Margaret Hadley included Deadly Fall in the course syllabus for her two Detective Fiction courses this term.  What a thrill it was to see my novel listed with stories by Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle,  Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammet, Georges Simenon and Raymond Chandler.  Hadley introduced Deadly Fall as an example of what modern authors are doing with the genre. She invited me in to talk with the class about the novel as well as my writing, since her students have the option to write a mystery short story as their major course requirement.

I began each session by describing my writing trajectory and must admit I was nervous facing the first group of 50 students who were mostly under age thirty, not my usual demographic. By the second group of 50, I was more relaxed. The students followed my opening by firing off questions that were interesting, intelligent and somewhat different from ones I’m used to.  Some had an academic slant: “What do you think Deadly Fall contributes to the genre?” Others simply surprised me: “Why do the swear words only start half way through the book?” They do?

I wrapped up the sessions with some writing tips and sympathized with their course assignment, as I’ve never written a successful mystery short story. How do you manage the surprises and twists with so few characters and little space to conceal clues?

I wish all of the students the best luck in the Detective Fiction course and in their academic careers. I’m so glad I had the chance to meet with this younger generation and hear their comments about Deadly Fall. If nothing else, I hope my appearance showed them that writers aren’t all dead white guys from other places. They can be ordinary people living in your own home town – your mom or neighbour or some day, perhaps, you.