The Write Stuff

“You can’t judge a book by its cover.’ Oh, really? Have you scanned the covers of the “romance” novels that populate the best-seller lists, particularly those devoted to self-published eBooks. Unless you are suffering from a terminal case of macular degeneration, a book cover showing a long-haired, muscular young man ripping the clothes off a sultry and bosomy woman should give you a pretty good idea of the prose you will find within.   In case you are still in doubt, try these titles on for size: The Earl’s Inconvenient Wife; Marcus Wilding: Duke of Pleasure; How to Catch a Wild Viscount; The Desperate Love of a Lord; The Earl’s Desire, and Dukes for Dummies. OK, I made that last one up, but you get the idea.   The “Bodice Rippers”, as these actual purple-prosed books are called, are hugely popular, both in print and online. In addition to the catchy titles (did earls, lords, dukes and “wild” viscounts really get that much action? – it would certainly explain...

In Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice , Bassanio, who in his quest to woo Portia borrows money from Shylock, at one point says, “I like not fair terms and a villain’s mind”, which has been loosely translated to mean, “I don’t like it when a villain acts nice”. Au contraire. Far be it from me to disagree with any statement originating from the Bard’s quill, but I like it when villains act nice. In fact, I find it difficult, if not impossible, to write a thriller or mystery in which all the bad guys and gals are one-dimensional scuzzbuckets. I’ve always hated books and movies where characters show up as faceless mountebanks and are immediately dispatched (often after being shot in the face), just to show how mean they are and/or how heroic the hero is. Of course, every work has to have a couple of “Star Trek Extras,” characters whose only job is to die, usually quite horribly. (John Scalzi wrote a hilarious sci-fi novel, Redshirts , about such characters – from their point of vi...

John Semley once wrote an interesting article in The New York Times Magazine entitled “The Death of the Private Eye”, which was not about the demise of a particular gumshoe (think Miles Archer in The Maltese Falcon ) but about the entire genre in print and film. Needless to say, I found the article interesting because that is the genre in which I write. Semley suggested that modern technology has made the traditional private eye – the dogged hero of so many wonderful novels and films – largely irrelevant. In this era of smart phones, the Internet, GPS and drones, how hard is it to nail your cheating spouse? Your next-door neighbor’s kid could probably get the goods for you. OK. You may not want the little snot to know your personal business, so you might hire a private detective (or, more likely, an “investigative service” with dozens of ex-cop operatives working on their fifth and sixth pensions). What used to take 50 pages in a thriller now takes a few strokes on a keyb...

I am often asked whether I preferred writing “facts” for newspapers rather than the “fiction” I now attempt with varying degrees of success. I can honestly say that I much prefer the latter, since it has become much more believable. In my books, the really evil villains usually wind up dead or in prison. (I say “really evil villains” to differentiate them from some of the other bad guys and gals I create who have a moral code and who often prove useful in bringing the real slime buckets to justice.) I know many thriller writers like ambiguous endings, where justice doesn’t prevail and the heroes – and the readers – just become more cynical. I prefer a happy ending, no matter how many people I have to slaughter.   When I was a reporter at The New York Times , covering Wall Street, very few of the people who stole hundreds of millions of dollars (they would be considered pikers now!) were ever punished. And those that were received sentences out of all proportio...

My last blog was about sex, so I have been a bit perplexed about how to follow up on that. Actually, the blog was about crafting sex scenes; like most writers, I talk a good game. So, today, I think I’ll talk about genres and point of view. (I can almost hear people turning off their computers, but hang in there; I’m going to throw in some sex!) My primary genres are thrillers and mysteries. My novels are not what can be described as literary (as anyone who has read one of my sex scenes can attest). I am beginning to experiment with other genres, including science fiction. Not the science fiction of  Dune  or the Ming-the-Merciless fantasies of weird civilizations in other universes where everyone has a name spelled off an eye chart, but rather stories about what science may look like in the not-too-distant future. I know I have to be careful, since things are moving at such a pace that the “fiction” part, no matter how outrageous, may be fact before you know it. Wh...

Today I will deal with a subject that bedevils many authors: sex. Not the act itself, which bedevils everyone between puberty and senescence (and maybe  after  senescence — but if you can’t remember what you are doing, why bother doing it?). I mean the sex scene, which is even more difficult to write than the notorious soufflé-making scene. Why are sex scenes so tough? Well, for one thing, if you’re writing a cookbook, they don’t really fit in. Besides, why put yourself through the torture of a sex scene after explaining how to make a soufflé? (Books about Mother Teresa or puppies probably shouldn’t have a sex scene, either.) For another, writers whose novels contain a lot of sexual activity often worry about backlash from their family and friends, whom they fear may be: A.  Offended. This is known as the maiden-aunt syndrome. Not to worry. These ladies usually have an attic full of steamy, semi-porn romance novels where bodices are ripped off wi...

·         “A writer is a world inside a person.” -- Victor Hugo ·         “A writer never has a vacation. For a writer, life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.” -- Eugène Ionesco I believe that a writer who takes his or her work seriously is never, so to speak, off duty. That doesn’t mean writers actually think writing 24/7. When I’m poised over a three-foot putt, I’m not pondering anything but the excuse I will use when I miss: 1.       There was a spike mark (which is less useful nowadays; the prevalence of spike-less golf shoes means most greens look like pool tables). 2.       A damn gust of wind. Any whiff of breeze will do, even if it wouldn’t move a mayfly. 3.       An opponent talked (or sneezed, belched, passed gas, or had a heart attack). 4.       I suck. I have i...