by Gale Albright

It’s early Monday morning. Actually, it’s about 8:30 Saturday night, but I’m working on this blog post ahead of time because I’ve got so much to do to get ready for the big show.

The big show, otherwise known as the book launch for Murder on Wheels, an anthology of crime stories authored by Austin Mystery Writers and friends, will take place at 7 p.m. on Tuesday night, August 11, at BookPeople.

So, pretend it’s early Monday morning and I’m setting the scene for the big show. My main thought right now is not, “Will I read beautifully in front of an audience?” or “Will there be an audience?” or “Do I need to take some crackers and cheese down there?” but should I get a manicure with (sigh) painted fingernails?

I guess Stephen King and David Baldacci don’t worry about manicures before they show up at a book launch, but what about those big-time female authors–Meg Gardiner, Sara Paretsky, Sue Grafton and so forth? I’ll bet no interviewer has ever asked them about their fingernails.

That would probably fall under the category of a sexist question that reporters sometimes ask female politicians. We’ve seen that scenario play out many times on television when dense reporters ask women candidates about their lipstick instead of their foreign policy. So, forget fingernails. One must think about relevance and art and writing routines and other lofty things, not cheese and crackers and nail polish.

I’m rambling here on Saturday night, preparing to take a shower to wash off biting insects and mosquito repellent from watering the yard in Austin’s summer inferno. It’s like walking out in the desert, complete with hot wind whipping around at 8 p.m. Why do I live here? It’s nice in the winter. Oh, and we need rain, even though we were almost flooded from too much rain in May and June. I live in an unbalanced place.

If you’ve read this far, you might be thinking, where’s the damn mystery stuff? This is just a silly jumble about nail polish, desert winds, crackers, and mosquito repellent.

Yes, you are right. I’m just a wee bit nervous about this incipient maiden book launch. Murder on Wheels has taken up much of our time and energy and creativity for the last couple of years. We’ve gone from a spark of an idea to a traditionally published book to a book launch, complete with booze, a cake–maybe something salty on the side–at BookPeople, where the big boys and girls go when they tour through Austin. It’s exciting. It’s scary. It’s a big deal, this big show.

Sometimes thinking about silly little things takes my mind off the big stuff. Has that ever happened to you? I am also trying to hydrate to prevent heat exhaustion, decide what shoes to wear, make sure everything’s washed, fix my hair and select earrings. I can handle the art and relevance and witty patter just fine. I’m not afraid of audiences. Show me an audience and I will go into an improvisational routine at the drop of a hat. I learned to do that at a tender age when I sang and danced for ladies at my aunt’s beauty shop in East Texas. I was the entertainment and did fancy patter, dance steps, and songs for bubble gum.

But what will they think about my nail polish?

Who are these folks? (clockwise) Kaye George, Laura Oles, Scott Montgomery, Kathy Waller, Gale Albright, Valerie Chandler, Reavis Wortham, Kaye George, Earl Staggs–the eight writers who made Murder on Wheels what it is. And Kaye George is in there twice because it was her idea in the first place.

Your Holy Grail?

In the movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Harrison Ford is tasked with locating the authentic Holy Grail from a crowded cave filled with imitations. “Choose wisely,” he is counseled by the knight standing beside him. “While the true Grail will bring you life, the false Grail will take it from you.” The knight then glances at a skeleton nearby and adds, “He chose…poorly.”

That’s good advice.

It applies not only to the dangerous deeds surrounding recovering rare artifacts while nefarious foes trail closely behind, it also applies to many more practical aspects of life. For writers, one choice that should be carefully considered is that of a writer’s group. There are countless stories of how an early work, in the wrong hands, can mean a great deal of discouragement and heartache. It can even derail a project indefinitely.

While attending a family wedding this summer, I met a woman who had just finished a draft of a novel, historical fiction, that she had labored over for some time. She had traveled to do the appropriate research, invested a great deal of time deciding how the story should unfold, and persevered until she typed the words ‘The End.’

And then she handed it over to someone she knew.

This man quickly tore her story apart and did so in such a way that it crushed her. She didn’t have the energy to go back to the story and now doubted herself and what she had created. The manuscript sat untouched. The man may have had good intentions or he may have been a self-centered ass. I can’t claim that knowledge. All I could see was the result. Here was a woman with multiple degrees, substantial talent and passion, and now she had put the book aside, seeing the novel as a failure.

We talked though her concerns and it was clear her novel was interesting and unique. My job, I felt, at that point, was to let her know it was completely okay to ignore his ‘advice’ and to trust herself in this process. That can be a tough thing when writers are just starting out in the world. So many are looking for expert advice, that perfect formula to publication, that magic bullet–to the point where we drown out our own voice as the price paid for such counsel. Don’t do it. Don’t trade your vision for someone else’s.

That’s not to say that writers shouldn’t take advice on how to improve a story. Each writer should certainly seek review. What I am saying is that you should choose those people VERY carefully, especially in the beginning stages when you are so emotionally tied to your work and are in a more delicate state. So, find support for your work and get feedback, but be selective as to whom you allow into your inner circle.

I feel that our group, Austin Mystery Writers, is a true treasure in that each one of us sincerely wants the others to succeed. We offer critiques, suggestions and opinions regarding each work in progress, but we do it in a way that is respectful and helpful. We will debate ideas, ask questions and then decide how to use that input. Sometimes we apply it to our stories and sometimes we ignore it. The choice is ours and is supported by the others at the table.

A critique group can be an important part of a writer’s life and I encourage each writer to find her own small trusted tribe to give feedback. Yes, you need to have some thick skin because your project needs work. It falls down in places and you need others to point those areas out so you can address them and improve the story. The key is to be deliberate as to who will be part of your inner circle, especially in the early stages. They will help toughen your hide, to take criticism graciously and to use it for its best purpose. They won’t tear your work down to feed their own egos. Instead, they will chip away at the weak spots so you your story’s foundation will be stronger.

Choose wisely.

And if you choose poorly, don’t be afraid to start over and choose again. Trust yourself to find your tribe. Because you will.

–Laura Oles 

The term “unreliable narrator” has been circulating widely (and sometimes pretty loosely) since Wayne Booth published The Rhetoric of Fiction, in 1961. The idea is superficially paradoxical: Our only access to a fictional world is through the eyes of the narrator. How can we know better than to believe what the narrator says?

In a way, we can’t. We have to accept the “facts” of a story as given. Generally, the unreliability has to do with interpretations and conclusions. The recipe for the unreliable narrator is to present observable actions and dialogue, then have the narrator interpret them, either in dialogue or in thought.

In The Turn of the Screw, for example, the “facts” of the story, as given to us by the governess-narrator, are that the governess sees the ghost of the dead man Quinn, while the housekeeper and the children say they don’t see him. Is the narrator delusional?

She says not. She asks us to believe that the children are lying and the ghost is deliberately not appearing to the housekeeper. She bases her beliefs on very subtle cues. It is impossible not to question her inference (and her sanity)—but who knows? Maybe she’s right!

Lesley Kagen’s narrator, ten-year-old Sally, in Whistling in the Dark, is unreliable because she’s young. When she hears that her daddy is a lush, she looks the word up in the dictionary and concludes, endearingly, that he is luxurious—like chocolate cake. A gap opens between Sally’s understanding and ours.

Kagan’s novel has a thrilling premise: this unprotected child has suspicions about adults at a time when a child-killer is on the loose in her town. Her innocence makes her vulnerable, and we are all the more fearful for her because of that.

Narrators are characters, and like anybody else, they may be naïve, biased, forgetful, irrational or downright insane. Any one of these traits can make the narrator the kind of person whose perception you might second-guess.

The narrator of The Girl on the Train is an alcoholic, and that compromises her credibility as a narrator. Sometimes she can’t remember what she’s done. And sometimes she is so overwhelmed by self-loathing that she cannot perceive others clearly. Here again, the narrator’s flawed perception ramps up the sense of danger.

In some of the best mysteries, the narrator (or viewpoint character) is unreliable in yet another sense—the detective is obtuse! If the author “plays fair” in a mystery, the solution is revealed in clues before the detective figures it out. The reader has a chance to solve the mystery.

The detective, though otherwise portrayed as smart and observant, draws false conclusions along the way, spins false theories, suspects one wrong person after another, until that light bulb moment when the mystery is solved. The reader, thus distracted, doesn’t see the solution before the revelation at the end. You could make a case that mystery works best when the narrator is unreliable but the reader doesn’t know it.

I was actually surprised when the main character of my own book was first labeled an unreliable narrator. She lies to other characters, so it’s fair to call her a liar, but she never once lies to the reader in narration.

She does, however, keep a momentous secret hidden throughout the entire book, while parading it in front of the reader’s eyes. The trick for her was to set up the reader’s assumptions, then to remain silent. For me the challenge was to play fair (and I did).

Elizabeth Buhmann is the Author of Lay Death at Her Door. An old mystery comes unsolved when the man who was convicted of it is exonerated.

by Gale Albright

Writing fiction is hard.

That’s a very subjective statement. Do I mean it is just plain hard, all the time, in all kinds of weather? Do I mean it’s hard for me in general? Am I therefore implying that writing non-fiction is easy?

I mean writing fiction is hard compared to writing essays, journalistic pieces, blog posts, and publicity notices.

It’s not that these other forms of writing are easy.

What I’m really talking about are rules.

Yes, rules. There just aren’t that many rules in writing fiction. Fiction is very subjective.

Journalism and essay writing and blogging are, of course, subjective as well, but they have more rules.

You might say that lack of rules should make writing fiction easier. Your mind is free to run riot. There are no fences to block your imagination. You can roam wide and far in your creative mind and do just about anything you darn well please.

Yes. That’s what makes it hard. Hard for me, of course, since I’m creating a blog/essay here without using any rules to speak of. Except length. Length is a key factor in a blog post. As in, don’t make it very long.

Fiction doesn’t have that problem. You can write gigantic tomes like Stephen King and J.K. Rowling. However, if you are writing 100-word short, short, short fiction, then length is a consideration. But again, back to rules. When you write a 100-word piece of fiction, the number one rule is, only write 100 words. That will bring you up short (I like puns and word play, which everyone does not).

Despite tendencies to rebellion in general, I don’t do that well with absolute freedom when it comes to writing. Or anything else, for that matter. I’ve always whined about being subjected to structure, but I’m lost without it. That’s why I’m thankful for deadlines. They impose a structure. Instead of feeling oppressed by deadlines, I feel grateful. I have a clear goal. I have a path to follow. I won’t wander off and get lost in the weeds. With a deadline, I see a light at the end of the tunnel. That doesn’t mean I don’t grouse about it. I’m just a grouser (not a bird).

Journalism has rules. There’s word count based on available space. There’s the old “Who, What, When, Where, and Why,” plus maybe a “How.” Journalism, in the classic newspaper sense, forms stories in the shape of inverted pyramids. You get the most important stuff in the first paragraph, if possible, and sort out the details in order of descending importance. I can do that. I get that upside-down pyramid thing.

Of course, there’s more personal, artistic journalism, such as investigative reporting, in-depth interviews, political coverage, travelogues, etc. These articles are fancier than plain reporting, but they are still reporting about facts. With non-fiction, you have facts.

With fiction, you may not have any facts at all. You may have to make up a whole world full of monsters, or aliens, or talking animals, or zombies, or robots, or who knows what.

The sky is the limit with fiction. And too much sky makes me run for cover.

Some writers argue that fiction really does have rules, lots and lots of rules. But can you prove it? Is it a fact? Or is it just wishful thinking? If I follow X, Y, Z rules, will I be successful as a writer (recognition, big paycheck, personal satisfaction)? For every rule about fiction, you can find another rule that disputes the previous rule. That’s because it’s all made up. Fiction rules aren’t facts. They are usually just good ideas based on empirical, anecdotal evidence and personal experience.

You don’t have to tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about. Of course I don’t. If I could locate and apply the magic rule, I would have Stephen King and J.K. Rowling begging me to give them tips. I’d be rich. I’d be famous. Remember, this is a subjective blog post. I was taught long ago that the way to write an essay is: 1) Tell the reader what you are going to tell her; 2) Tell her; 3) Tell the reader what you just told her. I can do that. I can embrace that structure.

But when I write fiction, I’m alone on an unmanned ship on a storm-tossed sea, trying to steer around the jagged rocks. It’s very scary. Fiction rules can only take you so far.

It’s between you and the ocean.

Disclaimer: This is a totally subjective, personal, meandering essay that doesn’t follow any rules and is neither journalism nor fiction. Perhaps it should be a diary entry. To finish off my treatise (diatribe? unfounded rant? incoherent conjecture?), I will tell you what I already told you at the beginning and the middle. Writing fiction is hard.