If you don’t have anything original to say, leave Lord Lytton alone.

So there I was, seated in the second row, at a daylong writers How-To. The room was filled with published, soon-to-be-published, and if-I-could-only-get-this-down-on-paper writers. On the dais were a collection of published authors assembled to share their experiences, love of craft, and general writing tips and principals. These authors were what I would consider mid-level authors—authors not yet on the NY Times bestsellers list so they also have day jobs. That’s ok. I didn’t expect someone on Dan Brown’s level, so I wasn’t disappointed. Truth be told, I was excited. I had every expectation of it being a full day of tips and insights I could run home with and polish up my latest manuscript.

It started off with a meet-and-greet over Danish and coffee, the obligatory smiles and raised eyebrow interest in our latest projects, and then got down to business. The morning session centered on character development, eased into plotting, and slid right into foreshadowing before the lunch bell signaled the end of the session.  The morning was light, interesting and involved audience participation, and I captured it all within four pages of notes. I was going to be a polishing fool by the time I got back to my manuscript that night.

Lunch was enjoyable. We clustered at tables in groups outside, going over different aspects of the morning session. We hurried through our box lunch, getting ourselves ready for the pearls of wisdom we were sure would be forthcoming in the afternoon session. Personally, my interest for the whole day was focused on an author in the afternoon session whose topic concerned the setting as a character. He was an author who also had an academic background.  

I yawned through the first author, whose name I forget. He spent most of the time convincing us he was well known. I pondered to myself how well known could he possibly be if he had to go through that much of an explanation? At some point he mentioned a few things about dialog, but my interest was forfeited long before he got to his talking points. He finally finished.

It was time. The topic I came to hear was about to begin. I turned to a fresh page in my notebook, neatly wrote the topic on the first line, and sat ready to be mesmerized. Imagine my disappointment when he starts out by reciting a portion of the opening paragraph of Paul Clifford, an 1830 novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. He posed it as a question and did so while omitting the opening sentence—a sentence much parodied and one most people would recognize whether you new the origin or not. This was followed by a regurgitation of myopic critiques on Lord Lytton. Needless to say, I put my pen down.

What was that first line, you ask? It read thus: “It was a dark and stormy night . . .” Sound familiar? It should, even Snoopy got in on the act by typing that line for the opening sentence in his attempt at the great American novel. But he wasn’t the only one. Poe penned the same line in one of his short stories, as did Madeleine L'Engle in her Newbery Medal-winning novel A Wrinkle in Time. So why pick on Lytton? I ask myself that every time someone uses it as an example of poor scene setting. It all goes back to Lytton’s contemporaries scoffing at such an opening for a book. Personally I would say it was more sour grapes than editorial critique. Edward Bulwer-Lytton was one of 19^th century England’s most widely read and prolific authors, so it naturally makes him a target to the rest. Every great writer has his critics—before there was a New York Times best seller list it was the only way the public knew they were great writers. Face it, who would quote a nobody?

 Those opening their How-To lectures using this one obscure line from a vast body of work might want to think about basing their direction on something from this century and leave Lytton alone.  Or at least, give the man some credit while you’re at it. Bulwer-Lytton had a varied and prolific literary career, writing historical fiction, romance, mystery, and even science fiction. His plays were produced in London and New York, and his novels were the basis of operas by Richard Wagner and William Henry Fry. Here’s a couple other famous quotes penned by Lytton that should sound familiar: “the pen is mightier than the sword,” and, “pursuit of the almighty dollar.” Even Great Expectations would have had a very different ending if it weren’t for Lytton convincing Dickens to revise the ending to one the reading public would find more acceptable.

So, what does this all have to do with the How-To’s of writing fiction? It basically comes down to this. What someone did or didn’t do a hundred years ago is going to be more confusing than helpful, especially when it’s taken out of context. There are only four basic rules to follow.

1. Write your book. Not one based on how someone else says you should write it. Get it all down on paper. Reread it and refine it until you’re happy with it.

2. Get it copyedited. This is the tough one. When I say get it copyedited I don’t mean give it to your niece because she got straight A’s in English, I mean spend a few dollars and have a professional editor go over the whole book. They’ll look at grammar, pacing, continuity, etc. Working with a professional is an eye opener, and will be the best investment you can make in your writing career. If you have it in you to be a successful writer, a good copyeditor will help you bring those talents to the surface, with the result being a publishable manuscript.

3. Querying agents. This isn’t as bad as everyone makes it out to be if you keep one thing in mind—a rejection is only one person’s opinion. There are also 2 parts to this: 1-Query, 2-Submission.

The Query: Writing a query is to some extent harder than writing the book, but not necessarily undoable. Start with a high level outline and distill it down to 3 things: who your protagonist is, what they need to overcome, and who/what is stopping them from achieving their goal. Open with a tag line (the Hook) and jump right into the 3 Things. Finish off with any writing credits you might have, but don’t worry if you don’t have any.

The Submission: Do your homework. There is a plethora of information at your fingertips about the agents dealing in your genre.  Look over their current deals on their websites, check MS Wishlist for what agents are excited about that week. Purchase the latest copy of Writers Market. Think about attending writing conferences where you can have a scheduled one-on-one pitch with an agent. The list goes on.

This could take some time, so be ready for that. Like anything else in life, you have to put your manuscript in front of the right person at the right time. Getting a rejection doesn’t mean your book stinks; it just means it wasn’t right for that agent at that time. I’ve always looked at a rejection as a badge of honor. It proved to myself I was serious about my writing. I was out there, pitching my book, taking my best shot. So you keep doing it until you hit it right smack in the center. And until that day comes, you continue to query but concentrate on #4.

4. Start the next book. If you followed 1 through 3 think about all you’ve learned. Apply it to your next book and start the process all over. I think you’ll be surprised at the result.

One final thought. Allow me to quote the inspiration for this rambling on a more positive note. There’ll be a lot of dark and stormy nights in your writing process. As long as you remember you have all the tools necessary to weather the storm, you'll be just fine. So, get back to work.


Picture Credit: Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton by Henry William Pickersgill

Oranges And Lemons - Part 2

My parents were kind and decent people, giving without thought to the less fortunate, and instilling in me the patience to understand my fellow man. My mother was educated, a fortune of her being the daughter of a governess prior to her marriage, and set a formal schedule at home to educate me, as my father was insistent I attain an education and “clean” work with an annual salary.

My father worked a milling machine in a factory located on Cheapside, toward St. Paul’s. Mr. Ebenezer Caldwell owned it, having been bequeathed to him on the death of his father. He ran the business with his half-brother Anderson. Mr. Caldwell gave my father the job in gratitude for stopping what was certainly intended as a deadly assault. One evening at dusk, just prior to the glow of the gas lamps, a ruffian confronted Mr. Caldwell and his half-brother on their way home from the factory. When the man produced a revolver Anderson ran, leaving Mr. Caldwell to fend off the attacker alone. My father witnessed the confrontation and came to his aid, thwarting the attack. Anderson’s flight was regarded as an act of cowardice that was answered with his dismissal from the company. Mr. Caldwell never saw, nor spoke the name, of his half-brother again.

Those first years of employment for my father were a time of prosperity for my family. I went on to attend Harrow – Mr. Caldwell, I found out years later, facilitated my placement there. I thought the passing of my parents, due to an outbreak of cholera during my second year, would be the end of my formal education. Through Mr. Caldwell’s benevolence I continued, eventually attending Cambridge. I remember thinking through my university years how fortunate I was my father interceded on the attack of Mr. Caldwell. That quickly changed, driven with every ounce of malevolence I could dredge up from the bowels of Hades, to wishing my father had left him to die at the hands of his attacker.

You might think it shameful for me to speak of the dead in such a way as this. Shameful to condemn a man whose benevolence afforded my father a decent wage and myself a fine education. Perhaps you’re right. At the time I was so consumed with hatred for what he had done to remember the acts of kindness that actually defined his life.

The judge and jury listened patiently as the facts of my case were revealed, occasionally stopping the proceedings to quiet the assorted gawkers jammed into the gallery in the Old Bailey. They were told during the trial Mr. Caldwell was murdered in April of 1886, his body stuffed into a steamer trunk in the attic of his flat on Fleet Street. It was further asserted that I remained in the flat after killing the man, availing myself to his substantial wealth and property. The police and medical examiner gave detailed reports substantiating those claims; claims based largely on information supplied to them from the grocer who delivered our meat and produce, the stationer who sold me the steamer trunk and the banker who set up the account for John Martin Havisham.

My legal counsel, a man whose name I find no need to remember, a man scarcely my senior but mentally and judiciously most certainly my junior, was inept in his ability to dispute even the most subjective of claims by the prosecutor. His laziness placed my whole defense on my testimony, a testimony which brought laughter from the gallery after my insistence of Mr. Caldwell being very much alive up until the twenty-eighth day of October, the last day I spoke with him and six months after his confirmed death. These “delusions”, as the court referred to them, were dismissed as nothing more than a feeble attempt to substantiate a claim of mental incapacity in defense of my actions.

I pleaded with the court to hear me out, assuring the judge my defense would be simple and address each of the claims related to the prosecutor’s assertion of my guilt.

“If you still find my statements an insult to the integrity of the court,” I said, pounding my fist on the well-worn rail before me, “I’ll concede my guilt and waste no more of the courts time.”

The court was reluctant to indulge me, finally conceding due to the overwhelming insistence from the gallery. It appeared their expectation was of a fanciful tale of my consorting with an apparition; a carefully spun tale to divert the jury from the greed and murder depicted by the prosecutor. The chamber went silent as I began.

I had nothing less than respect and gratitude for Mr. Caldwell. At the time of my graduation from Cambridge he had sold his factory for a substantial sum, resigning himself to a quiet life of travel and leisure. You’ll think it odd my having never met the man personally, knowing him only through his benevolence, but such was the case.

With my schooling complete I was excited over the prospect of becoming a journalist and eventually a novelist. The stipend for my education and living expenses, an account set up for me at the Bank of England by Mr. Caldwell, was closed out on my graduation from Cambridge. I took a small flat above a bakery on Bread Street and spent the next three years as an editor with the publishing house of Bascomb & Aldritch, a rather prestigious house with ties to Cambridge. It was there, on that blustery day in March of 1886, when a letter arrived from Mr. Caldwell.

His letter was my first direct contact with him since my parent’s death, now twelve years past. It requested I meet with him to discuss writing his memoirs. He wanted people to know the good he had done in this life. This entailed my leaving Bascomb & Aldritch. Without hesitation I agreed, soon finding myself sipping Earl Grey tea in the sitting room of his flat on Fleet Street.

Oranges And Lemons - A mystery most foul, part 1

I wanted to share my short story featured in Suspense Magazine, January 2011. I've serialized it in 4 parts, this being the first. Enjoy.

Oranges And Lemons

When will ye pay me,

Ring ye bells of Old Bailey.

When indeed. Surely I was going mad. I could reason out no other explanation why a child’s rhyme would occupy my thoughts on that cold morning before I was to face the hangman. The time was growing near when I, too, was to follow the path worn into the dismal stone passage beyond my cell door leading to the gallows. A path worn deep by all that were deemed wretched in this world, deserving or not, but condemned just the same to leave this world dangling lifeless from the taut end of a course length of hemp.

I heard the footsteps of the clerk from St. Sepulcher’s as he made his way down the passage, pausing at my cell door. His bell tolled, repeatedly and with long pauses between each ring, announcing to all in earshot the coming execution of the sentence afforded me by the court. A sentence justly appropriate for the guilty of such a heinous crime but never appropriate for the wrongly accused, as I so boisterously, and at times belligerently, addressed my accusers. At the end I was alone without voice nor hope to stay my execution. My face aged, my hair grayed from the thought of the gallows and the collar that awaited my neck. I was labeled mad by the prosecutor, so it’s mad I must be. Such was my fate; as was the fate of those wretched men before me whose shoulders wore smooth the cold section of stone I rested against.

As I looked up from the floor, my arm resting on a square wooden bench, which was as much a table as it was a chair, I was confronted with the dismal history of my cell. The dim light of a gray morning, reluctantly drifting in through the crossed steel bars covering my only glimpse of the life I would soon leave behind, drew out the last thoughts of those I was soon to walk amongst. Every inch of the grimy stone walls had been etched with the pathetic pleas for mercy or forgiveness for the sins that brought this refuse of society to their end. The writing was barely discernable, but the intent was obvious. Those petitions for mercy, those desperate attempts to leave behind some token of existence, appeared little more than a crude imitation of a patterned wall covering to my educated eye. Layer upon layer of incoherent scribbling ran together, blurred from the soot and grime deposited by the years that stood witness to the hundreds who came before, removing all hope of salvation. Those walls were cold and hard, a reflection of the verdicts delivered to the souls unfortunate enough to gaze upon them. I had no intention of leaving this life behind in such a fashion.

I made only one request of the Keeper. Whether for my youth of eight and twenty years or just a genuine kindness for my politeness in manner, I will be forever grateful for the paper and pen left for me. The inkwell was less than half full but it was more than adequate for my needs. My intent was to leave behind some small note of regret for my fate, fulfilling a personal desire to make one last claim of innocence. Afterwards, I reserved a small amount of water in my wooden cup to assist me in what was to be a final act of mercy on my soul.

I was told from other prisoners I met in the quadrangle that a vial of arsenic could be obtained for a price from the turnkeys. If caught bargaining such a deal, a turnkey could find himself on the other side of a cell door, but the fruition of the transaction left no fear of accusation. I had no money, nor a means to acquire any. What I did have was an exceptionally well-made pair of leather boots. I kept them buffed to a high shine, having torn a pocket from my trousers for use as a polishing cloth. They hadn’t gone unnoticed by the turnkeys, having twice broken up attacks on my person by other prisoners wanting to acquire the footwear for themselves. The deal was struck, the exchange made under cover of night to protect the turnkey. By the time I was moved to my cell in the ward where the condemned await their fate I stood content in my stocking feet, knowing I would at least cheat the hangman.

I had but a few hours left before the warrant for my execution arrived. I pulled from my pocket the small glass vial, pulling out the stopper and pouring the deadly liquid into the remains of my water. There was no comfort to be found on the cold, damp floor of a Newgate cell. My solace came from warm memories of a life with loving parents. Putting thoughts together for a final note I reflected back over the facts leading to the desperate situation I then found myself in. When finished, and with a mind at peace and in acceptance of what I had resigned to do next, I would take a final sip of this life.

To be continued...

A Tip Of The Hat From Sherlock Holmes

Some of my earliest memories of reading center on the excitement I found in the pages of the Sherlock Holmes stories. I was just a lad, so I was forever looking up those huge words Sir Athur Conan Doyle used in his narratives with Holmes and Watson. I couldn't pronounce most of them, and I was quite sure they would never come up in conversations with my school mates, but I was determined to understand every aspect of the stories. Doyle made quite an impression on me, and that excitement has stayed through these many years. It is the foundation for my love of mysteries and probably the driving force behind why I began writing mysteries. So you can imagine my excitement when Mysterious Reviews published their review for my new mystery "Along Came A Fifer" and mentioned the "Holmesian" feel of the story and characters. It was as if Holmes himself, peering down from a window in his flat on Baker Street, tipped his hat with approval as I strolled by. I could never compare my work to such a great writer as Doyle, but I'm thrilled I could convey through my story a tribute to the lasting impression his work has inspired in me.

I'm much older now, but on a crisp winter's night, when objects along the road cast long ominous shadows across the side yard, and the wind resonates through the trees like a faint cry in the distance, I pull out that old volume and once again follow Holmes and Watson through the streets of Victorian London.