EVERYTHING OLD IS OLD AGAIN

by Gar Anthony Haywood

An author learns a lot when he volunteers to be a judge on a literary awards panel.  Such as:

-  A slow start is an absolute deal breaker.

-  There are a ton of books out there.

-  Most of that "ton of books" is unreadable.

-  If you believe everything you read on a book's cover, there are approximately 8,417,212 "international bestsellers" writing crime novels at present.  Who knew?

-  There are some incredibly talented writers today working in a state of obscurity their storytelling skills simply do not warrant.

-  Great cover art guarantees nothing; awful cover art, on the other hand, is usually a perfect compliment to the book to which it is attached.

And finally, the most important lesson to be learned of all:

-  We all need to try a little harder to come up with some new ideas.

Quite a while back, I promised you a Murderati post in which I list all the crime novel premises I think are begging to have a fork stuck in them.  These are premises so overused, so tired and ubiquitous, that at this point, any book based upon one should just be given a number for a title, as in "THEY KILLED HIS FAMILY AND NOW HE WANTS REVENGE #46,808."

Well, here's that list, at least in part:

-  The loving widow who discovers her recently deceased, ostensibly perfect husband/boyfriend was not the man she thought he was (because he was in fact a spy/crime boss/assassin/serial adulterer/etc., etc.).

-  The triple-crossed espionage agent who must travel the globe in search of those who betrayed him before the multiple contracts on his life can be filled.

-  The amnesiac who wakes up in a strange place and must piece together his/her past while simultaneously evading an army of people trying to kill him/her for reasons unknown.

-  The serial killer survivor who, years after the attack that nearly killed her (and it is almost always a woman), finds herself being stalked by either that very same serial killer, or someone mimicking him.

-  The ex-con, fresh out of prison, forced to pull one more job by his former partners in crime, who are holding his wife/child/mother/brother/family dog hostage to ensure his cooperation.

-  The unstoppable professional assassin with the catchy code name (the Wolf, the Hound, El Tigre, El Diablo, etc.) who suddenly finds himself being hunted by his most ruthless professional rival (the Snake, the Dog, Sir Muerte, La Leona, etc.).

-  The grizzled, addiction-addled cop forced to play cat-and-mouse with a diabolical serial killer whose M.O. is so twisted, half the CSI team loses its lunch at every crime scene.

-  The grizzled FBI agent-with-a-past forced to play cat-and-mouse with a diabolical serial killer whose M.O. is so twisted, half the CSI team loses its lunch at every crime scene.

-  The grizzled, addiction-addled FBI profiler-with-a-past forced to play cat-and-mouse with a diabolical serial killer whose M.O. is so twisted, half the CSI team loses its lunch at every crime scene.

-  The haunted, addiction-addled psychic who reluctantly helps the police play cat-and-mouse with a diabolical serial killer whose M.O. is so twisted, half the CSI team loses its lunch at every crime scene.

-  The grizzled, addiction-addled EX-cop-with-a-past forced out of retirement to play cat-and-mouse with a diabolical serial killer whose M.O. is so twisted, half the CSI team loses its lunch at every crime scene.

-  The grizzled, unshakable ex-military policeman who plays cat-and-mouse with a diabolical serial killer whose M.O. is so twisted, half the CSI team loses its lunch at every crime scene.

-  The grizzled . . .

Well, you get the idea.

If I were nothing but a reader, I'd be way tired of this stuff.  I mean, seriously, enough is enough.  But speaking as an author, I have to admit that avoiding such overly-familiar concepts is easier said than done, because there are only so many promising crime or thriller novel premises to be had in this world and devising one that's never been done before is damn near impossible.  Also, let's be honest here: The reason people keep writing books based upon these retreads is that people keep buying and reading them.

Still, I think any author seeking to create truly great work must make a concerted effort to take the tried and true and make something relatively fresh and new out of it.  Adding a twist here or there is not enough; true creativity demands that an author deconstruct these belabored premises and rebuild them from the ground up, so that a reader cannot instantly identify --- or worse, dismiss --- their latest book as "WRONGFULLY ACCUSED WOMAN SEEKS MISSING CHILD AND HUSBAND'S KILLER WHILE RUNNING FROM THE LAW #24,909."

A unique voice and/or intriguing protagonist can only do so much to separate a book based upon a tired old idea from the hundreds of others based upon that very same idea.  To be memorable, to stand out from the crowd, such a book must break the mold in some significant way, not merely massage it into a slightly different shape.

If all you want to do is sell thousands of paperback originals at Walmart (and come to think of it, who doesn't?), this may all sound like way too much work, and you're probably right.  But if your goals are a little loftier --- if you want to build your reputation on more than just an ability to create suspense using the same limited tool box hundreds of other authors are drawing from --- you have to go the extra mile and yes, reinvent the wheel.

Otherwise, you risk turning off readers and award judges alike for whom unadulterated familiarity may not only breed contempt, but qualify a book for the Been-There, Read-That-a-Million-Times-Before rejection pile.

THEY'RE JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU (WINNING AWARDS)

by Gar Anthony Haywood

As you may have noticed, some of us Murderati authors of late have been having a heck of a time getting brand new posts up on schedule for your entertainment.  It's not that we've been shirking our duties, it's just that life intrudes.  So rather than fresh content, for better or worse, you've been treated to a lot of Oldies but Goodies over the last few days.

Well, as it happens, I'm in a bind trying to put my own post together today.  The family and I are moving into a new home this weekend and to say I've been swamped getting ready would be the equivalent of saying Noah worked liked the devil preparing for the flood.  I'm dead on my feet.

Still, all excuses to do so aside, I'm not in the mood to fall back on an old post of mine on this Wednesday, no matter how brilliant it would have been.  So what I'm going to do instead is lightly touch on a subject that's been on my mind quite a bit lately.

Take a look at this book cover:

I bought this Fawcett paperback back in 1986 or so.  This photo's rather lousy, so just to be clear, the cover text reads as follows:

BEST PRIVATE EYE NOVEL OF THE YEAR

Shamus Award, Private Eye Writers of America 

An Amos Walker Mystery

LOREN D. ESTLEMAN

SUGAR-TOWN

"A gem.  I think Amos and McGee would understand each other."
John D. MacDonald

Now, here's my question: Can you guess what element of the overall cover ultimately convinced me to buy the book?

a)    the art

b)    the John D. MacDonald blurb

c)    the title

d)    the reference to the Shamus award

e)    the name of Estleman's character, Amos Walker

If you guessed b, you'd be close.  I've never been big on cover blurbs, but a kind word from John D. MacDonald would have been nothing to sneeze at.

The art?  It's fine, but it didn't particular impress me.

I liked the title, I didn't love it.

And while Amos Walker is a great name for a series character, I wouldn't have risked $1.95 on that alone.

Which leave us with d, the reference to the Shamus award.  That's the correct answer.  I'd never heard of the Shamus award at the time and knew nothing about the Private Eye Writers of America, but I figured if a group of Estleman's peers had seen fit to proclaim this book "the best private eye novel of the year," it had to be pretty damn good.

It was.

I'm a little more jaded where awards are concerned now, of course.  But not by much.  I still believe in them, and value them, and yes, goddamnit, as an author, I covet them.  How readers in general feel about them is a mixed bag.  Some find awards important and some don't.  And publishers?

Publishers don't give a flying f-word about awards.

You want proof?  How's this:

I'm a judge on the Best Paperback Original committee for one of the major book awards this year and I can count on two hands the number of submissions I've received directly from publishers over the last five weeks.  Authors have sent their own books in, publicity professionals have sent the books of clients in --- but only three submissions have come from the house that published them.  The list of major publishers yet to be heard from, regardless of who did the actual submitting, would be longer than your arm.

Conclusion?  Publishers don't think the promotional payoff of one of their books winning a literary award (short of the Booker Prize) is greater than the cost of mailing one physical copy each out to four or five award judges.

Seriously?

I think this is pretty sad and incredibly shortsighted, but maybe publishers are right.  Maybe awards really don't matter.

What do you think?

The Duffer Awards: Legendary Characters, Ridiculous Awards

by Alafair Burke

Remember high school Year Book Awards?  Most Likely to Succeed?  Best Dresser?  Most likely to raise the biggest pig?  (Hey, I went to high school in Kansas!)

Well, I think crime fiction characters need these kinds of very, very serious awards.  So for the entire month of June, my website will host the first annual Duffer Awards. Each day will feature two beloved crime fiction characters, matched head-to-head for very, very serious award categories like Most Likely to Win a Hot Dog Eating Contest and Odd Couples Most Likely to Win on Amazing Race.

And very serious awards need very serious award statues.  Duffer, as you probably know, is my very serious dog. 

Here is a Duffer Award. (Notice that his body is NOT an Oscar Award because that would undoubtedly be some kind of trademark infringement, and Duffer is much too serious to get caught in that kind of scandal.)

We started the Duffer Awards on June 1.  (See how I used "we"?  Like "we" are a major operation with accountants tallying votes and whatnot?  We are very serious.)

Here are the awards we've decided so far (winners in bold):

1. Most Likely to Marry His Ex-Wife
Mickey Haller (Michael Connelly) v. Jesse Stone (Robert B. Parker)
 
2.  Most Likely to Sacrifice an Arm a la 127 Hours
Serge Storms (Tim Dorsey) v. Gretchen Lowell (Chelsea Cain)
 
3.  Most Likely to Make a 15-mile Detour for Good Junk Food
Tess Monaghan (Laura Lippman) v. Kinsey Milhone (Sue Grafton)

4.  Best Manners
Maisie Dobbs (Jacqueline Winspear) v. Inspector Lynley (Elizabeth George)

5.  Most Badass Sidekick
Bubba Rogowski (Dennis Lehane) v. Clinton "Skink" Tyree (Carl Hiaasen)

Today at the website, you can vote on Best Hat: Raylan Givens (Elmore Leonard) v. Walt Longmire (Craig Allen Johnson).  Post a comment beneath your vote, and you'll automatically be entered to win weekly prizes including signed copies of my books and $50 gift certificates to your favorite bookseller.  The more you comment, the more you're entered to win. 

Coming later in the month are 24 additional very serious awards for very serious things like Best Shoes, Ability to Travel the Globe in Two Pages or Less, Most Likely to Crash a Server on Match.com, and Most Likely to Get Away With It.  Click here and start voting today. And I hope the Murderati will visit the Duffers every day in June to vote on a new award.  (And perhaps help spread the word.  This should be fun for anyone who reads crime fiction!)

The Best Two Bucks You Can Spend

In other June-only news, ANGEL'S TIP is available in the US as a $1.99 e-book.  This special edition also includes an essay from me about the real-life stories that inspired ANGEL'S TIP, as well as the first three chapters of my new book, LONG GONE. 

If the idea behind this low price is to hook new readers, I feel a bit like a drug dealer handing out free samples on the playground.  But if you have been at all entertained by my posts here, this is a way to check out the novels for less than a cup of coffee. 

Here are the links to buy for Kindle, Nook, and the Sony Reader.  Okay, I feel a little dirty now.  And not in a good way.

Now for Comments: Help me get an early start on next summer's Duffer Awards.  What are some very, very serious awards for crime fiction characters, and which two characters would make a good head-to-head match for the award?

Deadline

By Allison Brennan

No matter how well I plan, my book deadlines always overlap other major events.

For example, PLAYING DEAD was due when I was in the middle of moving. FEAR NO EVIL was due between Thanksgiving and Christmas--a hectic time for normal people, and an insane time for people with kids (school Christmas plays, choir performances, family events, shopping, and the kids are out of school!)

Birthday GirlThis month, things crept up on me . . . My daughter's 8th birthday (Friday the 25th); my husband's 50th birthday (Wednesday the 30th--he shares his birthday with Eric Clapton--and we had the party last night); two volleyball tournaments (last weekend and this weekend); the Dreamin' in Dallas conference where I'm the keynote speaker next Saturday (and yes, I need to write a speech . . . or at least have some notes!); the RT conference starting on the 6th (and all the prep before then); and then the Thriller 3 anthology, of which I'm the managing editor. 

Usually, I can juggle pretty well, but when everything happens at the same time, I get a little stressed :/

This time, however, I'm not as stressed as usual. My frustration is that I know exactly where the story is going, yet can't sit down for 5 days straight and write. A week ago, I hit a major turning point, saw that I'd laid the ground work for something pretty cool (no, I didn't plan it, it just happened that way) and now I want to write non-stop . . . but with kids and responsibilities, I can't. This is one of the few times I wished I lived alone in a cabin in the woods (with running hot water, electricity, and food) and not have anything else to do but write. Not just because of the pending deadline, but because I'm loving where the story is going and I don't want to lose the momentum. I want to get into the zone and never leave it.

Every book seems to be a little different--some start "easy" and get harder; others start hard and get easier; but inevitably, I have two major turning points: the beginning of act two when I get stuck (always) and go back and write and rewrite and rewrite, constantly thinking that the book sucks, I can't write, I should be flipping burgers, everything is total garbage . . . then something clicks and I can move on. Then, at the beginning of act three,  I "see" the book as a whole, have (usually) figured out the ending, and all I want to do is write 24/7. 

My zone is focus plus excitement. I am so in-tune with the story, that I can't NOT write it. Being torn away from the book is emotionally painful. I stop writing not because I can't think or get stuck or reach the end of a scene, but because I'm literally falling asleep at my computer. And the first thing I do in the morning is rush to the computer and start writing. 

So really, I'm not at all upset that I needed to be up at 6 a.m. on Sunday for a volleyball tournament 45 minutes away . . . I've already mapped out the two closest Starbucks.

Last Thursday, Zoe and I spoke and signed books at M is for Mystery. The crowd was small, but very interested -- I think because Zoe is so entertaining! She's smart and funny, my two favorite traits in a person. 

Me, Ed Kaufman, and Zoe Sharp at M is for Mystery

And I have some good news . . . LOVE ME TO DEATH is a finalist for best romantic suspense in the RITA award. The winners will be announced at the RWA conference in NYC at the end of June.

Apologies for the short blog -- that deadline thing! So I'll leave you with a question.

I often buy books that final in contests like the RITAs and Edgars and Thrillers, especially debut novels and books that are nominated in my own category. For example, this year I've read 5 of the other 7 nominees; I just ordered the two I haven't read. Do you use contests as a shopping list? Do you find that you've already read them before they were nominated? Have you found any favorite author because you bought them after they won or was nominated for a writing award?

How Not to Make Contest Judges Hate You

by J.D. Rhoades

     I had the honor this past year to serve as one of the committee chairmen for the MWA's Edgar Awards. The committee that I headed up was the Best Young Adult Mystery, and let me tell you, it was an eye-opener. I went into it not knowing that much about the whole YA field, except Harry Potter (which I liked but could take or leave, based on the first book) and the TWILIGHT series, which I haven't read, but which I hear an awful lot about from the teenagers in my house (one liked it okay, the other loathes it).

     After reading through a boatload of submissions, though, I was extremely impressed by both the breadth and depth of the subject matter and the quality of the writing. It was a tough choice, and the voting went several rounds, but I'm comfortable with the eventual winner: John Green's PAPER TOWNS.

     The voting process itself is shrouded in secrecy and covered by a variety of confidentiality agreements that make the whole selecting-the-Pope thing seem transparent. But I thought that, since I'm sure new committees are hard at work reading through a new batch of submissions, I'd toss out some general suggestions to publishers and publicists on how not to make committee members (and committee chairmen) hate you.

     You need to understand that some of the things I am going to tell you in the following paragraphs may not seem fair. That's because they really are not fair. They are a natural function of the judges being human. Judges, if they're doing their jobs. do try  to be better than the average human, but don't stake your book's chances on their succeeding.

1.  Know what genre, if any, the award is for. The Edgars, for example,  is given by the MYSTERY WRITERS OF AMERICA. I put that in all caps because it apparently escaped the notice of some publishers. Since these awards are--let me say it again--from the MYSTERY WRITERS OF AMERICA, perhaps--and this is just a thought-- the novels you send should have at least some component of mystery or crime in them. We got some beautifully written, moving books that just did not fit the genre, no matter how far we tried to stretch it. I began to think about midway through that a lot of books get submitted because some harried publicist told a summer intern "go pull some books to submit for the Edgar Award" and the poor clueless intern was too cowed to admit that he or she didn't know what the hell the Edgar Award was. Well, poor clueless intern may not know, but you can bet your boots the judges do, and they're slogging through a lot of submissions. If you really cannot rest until the judges read your fantasy epic or your beautiful, sensitive coming of age tale, neither one of which has so much as a stolen bike to bring it into the realm of crime fiction, then send  it after the awards, when they might  actually have time to read something else. Otherwise, they will hate you.
2. Do not send ten books the week before the contest deadline. I know you're busy and stuff slips up on you. But all of the judges are   working writers, and they have deadlines, too. Your gem may not get as thorough a read if the judges only have a day and a half to do it. And they will hate you.
3.  On the other hand, if you send books too early, it's possible that the book the judges all   loved early on is going to get pushed aside in their memory by the one they just read that they love, too. See "this is not fair" above. So when do you send them? I'd say about midway through the period. the judges may breathe a heavy sigh when the UPS guy shows up with another dozen books, but they probably won't hate you. Much.
4.  Once the submission period is over, please do not ask if the judges will  consider "just one more" that you forgot to submit. Sorry, I know stuff happens, mistakes get made, and it's not the writer's fault. The committee chair may really want to help you out, but I for one had no real wish to open that particular floodgate, because the old cliche is actually true: if they do it for you, they have to do it for everyone else. And, since what you're making the chair and/or the committee  do is make an innocent writer suffer for something that was not their fault, said chair and/or committee  will feel guilty, and thus, will hate you.

     A final note: Maybe it's because I haven't gone to the right places in the blogosphere, but I was happy to see a big decrease this year in the usual bitching and whining about how the Edgars suck, how awards in general suck, how it's all political, people only vote for their friends, blah blah blah. I can't speak for the other committees, but the folks on the YA committee (Our Pari, Our Cornelia, Jeff Shelby, and Lori G. Armstrong) volunteered cheerfully with only a minimum of begging on my part. Then they worked very hard and bent over backwards to be fair, even when publishers violated the above guidelines. And I certainly didn't hear any of the "well, this needs to win because such and such won last year" reasoning that awards judges are sometimes accused of.

     Thanks guys, it was an honor to be your chairperson. And thanks, Cornelia, for being there to present the award itself.

     So, 'Rati: any of you ever judge an award? Have any suggestions of your own? Readers, if you'd like to chime in with your own stories, or even a "this book should've won" complaint, feel free. Just don't trash my committee, or I'll have to take steps. You don't want me to take steps.