Happy 113th Birthday Alfred Hitchcock!

by Jennifer Harlow

On Encore Suspense I've been enjoying Thirteen Days of Alfred Hitchcock in honor of his 113th Birthday on the 13th of August, today. Since I'm sure we're all fans of the Master of Suspense, I wanted to honor him as well on this day. So this post will be all about Hitch and what he means to me.

There was a time when my parents finally put their foot down and refused to allow me to watch horror movies, rightly so. I was around age eleven and still kept waking them in the middle of the night to check for monsters or serial killers (In my defense I was living in Central Florida near a swamp, both were very prevalent at the time). I was forbidden to watch anything with either save for the Universal Horror classics like The Bride of Frankenstein and The Mummy as the gore factor was a minimum. As I am me, I became obsessed with them watching the whole cannon. When Halloween Horror Nights (HHN) came around at Universal Studios about ten miles from my house I begged my father to take me so I could meet the monsters. (Please note the same never went for the Disney characters. I lost my shit, screaming like the pre-teen I was when I saw The Wolf Man as if he were Justin Bieber, but walked right by Mickey Mouse. As I said a million times before, I was a weird child.) At HHN Dad took me to the Hitchcock movie magic show, where you could see props from movies, a 3-D The Birds show, and a re-enactment of the shower scene from Psycho with audience participation. There I met Mr. Hitchock and his work. Good-bye monsters, hello Hitch.

As obsessively as my monster phase, so was my Hitchcock phase. Spies, conspiracies, serial killers, evil housekeepers, swarms of birds, I immersed myself in them. It was my first introduction to suspense, mystery, and intrigue using not only story and character but the tone set by use of lighting and camera angle. I learned that shock wasn't the only effective way to unnerve people. The slow burn was just as discomforting. I still always keep in mind his classic example of suspense versus shock. Shock being the main character walks into an office and right away a bomb goes off. Suspense is when the audience is shown the bomb then the characters keep talking, unaware of the bomb as the audience is. The thrill is prolonged with the latter, and in my opinion is better. 

I also loved that evil could be found where you least expected it. On a train, in a motel, across the table from you. The characters rarely went looking for trouble, it always just found them. Nowhere was safe, just as in real life. One day you're sitting in a hotel lobby, the next you're being chased by a plane in a corn field due to a case of mistaken identity. His movies also taught me that a villain could be sympathetic. Mrs. Danvers, Bruno Antony, even Norman Bates, they all had tragic back stories, desires that could never be fulfilled. They were overlooked by society and it drove them a little mad, as we all go sometimes. I try to incorporate all of these factors into my books. There are no absolutes in life, no one is wholy good or bad, but watch out when Mr. Hyde surfaces. You could end up being hacked to death in a shower or have your loved one attacked by the serial killer you've been watching through your window. That is Mr. Hitchcock's legacy, and I am beyond proud to have the ability to make even a tiny contribution to carrying on that legacy.

My Top Five Favorite Hitchcock Films

1. Shadow of a Doubt

2. Psycho

3. Strangers on a Train

4. Vertigo

      5. Notorious      

What about you? Which are your favorite Hitch movies? How have they impacted your writing or reading habits?  

Happy Birthday Hitch!

Reporting in from E-book Land

Keith here

John Wanamaker, the founder of the eponymous Philadelphia department store, was reputed to have said: "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."

I'm trying lots of stuff to publicize my ebook original and just hoping half will work. I said I’d keep you up-to-date on my adventures in the terra incognita that is ebook land and so here goes.

As soon as Drop By Drop became available on Amazon and Smashwords, I emailed just about everyone on my contact list to let them know the news. That seemed to drive a spike in sales. I later put the ebook up on Barnesandnoble.com, but there hasn’t been much uptake there (yet?).

Through PRWeb, I circulated a press release. It was a reasonable $40 after using a coupon. Even at that bargain price, I didn’t detect any signs it did much. It sure as heck didn’t generate any press inquiries.

I’ve blogged here and at my own blog. Over at The Rap Sheet, I recounted “The Story Behind The Story" of Drop by Drop. Here's a sample.

"The Intelligence Committee had just been made permanent based on the recommendation of the Church Committee, which had deemed the CIA a 'rogue elephant.' I started as the junior of three lawyers on the committee staff. Before the end of my first year, the other two had left. I was 27 years old and suddenly the senior attorney on the committee overseeing the government’s secret intelligence activities. Holy shit!"

The Rap Sheet is a pretty popular ezine (with good reason), and my column was picked up by dozens of other sites. A blog called Indie Bee Covers managed to make me confess that if I could be any fictional character, I'd be Frank Hardy, Fenton's son and Joe's big brother.

Garnering reviews from the regular suspects is tough. Daily newspapers have been shedding book reviewers for years. I’m a subscriber to the mags Mystery Scene and Crimespree. I emailed the editors, but they’re not reviewing ebook originals – yet. I sent out a tweet asking if any online reviewers wanted a copy of the ebook. My tweet was re-tweeted and a couple of terrific reviews resulted. Therese Poletti, the high tech columnist for Dow Jones’s Marketwatch, interviewed me for her piece called "E-books causing seismic shift in publishing." About publishing Drop By Drop as an ebook original, she quotes me saying, "It’s both exciting and scary. I am a tech guy. I like trying new stuff and figuring this out." (No news if you've been reading my pieces here.) A local newspaper and TV show will have me discussing how the ebook revolution is affecting a working writer. We should see what they come up with soon.

Brick-and-mortar bookstores like Kepler’s, M Is for Mystery, and Books Inc, were huge supporters of my first two books, but what can they do with an ebook? A signing? There’s nothing to inscribe. And they don’t have ebooks sitting on the shelves. (I am going to be on a panel at Books Inc in Berkeley next Monday, but they’ll be stocking Dot Dead and Smasher for me to sign.) The Palo Alto Library sent me an email asking if I would come by for a talk on Drop By Drop, but they need to have copies to loan out. Ebook format is okay with them, but the only way they get ebooks to loan is through a service such as Overdrive. I did fill out an online form for Overdrive, but since they seem focused on dealing with publishers than authors, I am not optimistic.

I’m doing advertising on Facebook and Goodreads, but not getting too many clicks on them. (That's one of the three ads on Goodreads above.) Since I pay only for the click-throughs, this is an experiment that isn’t costing much. I have high hopes for the advertising I have planned on an email newsletter that goes out to Kindle readers, but that won’t happen till October. No space until then.

I should have a book trailer soon and will look forward to pasting that on my website and everywhere else I can think of.

Andy Gross, the thriller writer (and terrific guy) whose books show up on The New York Times bestseller list every year, sent me a blurb: “No one puts the crosshairs on Washington, terrorism, and intrigue better than Keith Raffel. Do yourself a favor and read Drop By Drop!” I immediately put it up on my website and in the book descriptions on Amazon and Goodreads. (Andy's Kirkus-starred Eyes Wide Open is out July 12.) Hank Phillippi Ryan, who has won 26 Emmys as one of the country's top investigative reporters on Boston's WHDH-TV, has also managed to pick up a triple crown of crime fiction awards -- Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity. Hank is a class act and whip smart, but must have had a rare lapse of judgment last night when she emailed me that Drop By Drop is "intriguing, intense, and with such an insider's knowledge of the war on terror that I'm surprised it's not classified. Sinister, scary, and heart-stoppingly realistic--this is a gem of a thriller!" Can't wait to use that, too!

It’s terrific that Jess, Gin, Karen, and Joanna's ebooks published by Midnight Ink are doing so well at prices under $3. I just wonder what MI is doing to publicize them. With a couple of the books in the top 100, they are doing something right!

When you get a paper-and-ink book out, you have a pretty limited time to make a splash. After a few months, bookstores send their stock back to the publisher. With an ebook, things can take time to ripen. It’s against my nature to be patient, but I do believe more reviews from readers will come and word-of-mouth will build. Or at least I hope so!

As always, I’m open to comments and words of advice. Please send them along!

IT’S MAGIC!

Darrell James

Storytelling is an art. It’s also maybe a science. Stephen King has related the relationship between writer and reader as a kind of mental telepathy, where thoughts and ideas are exchanged through words and word pictures. A means of lifting imaginings from one psyche to imprint them emotionally on another.

It’s magic really. And awesomely wonderful to boot. It inspires questions from readers and aspiring writers alike about how the process of creating a story takes place. And what makes a story work? The most often asked question is “Where do you get your ideas?” The answer is always “anywhere” and “everywhere”. (A truthful but not very helpful response.) My answer is that I usually start with an idea that simply intrigues me. Something that I find personally fascinating, a tickle of curiosity. My goal, in starting, is to tell myself a “really great story”. And do so in a way that fills my imagination. My assumption is that if I can thrill myself beyond belief, then others will thrill as well.

From there, the work begins. Characters must be imagined and brought to life. Relationships are defined. Conflict must arise. (Good is almost always pit against evil.) And a hero or heroine, with much to lose, must emerge to right the wrong, and do so against all odds. (Or at least that’s my approach.)

My forthcoming novel, NAZARETH CHILD, was conceived in just this manner. An idea that has always fascinated me (the idea on which this book is founded) is the idea of charismatic power. That found in the likes of Jim Jones and Marshall Applewhite (You remember, Do, the Haven’s Gate guy?), self-proclaimed prophets and messiahs. Who are these dominant types? From where does their power to influence come? What motivates them? What secret of life do they possess (or believe they possess)? And, why… seemingly against all reason… do thousands, sometimes millions, follow?

The story introduces Del Shannon, a young female investigator who works for Desert Sands Covert in Tucson, a firm that specializes in finding and recovering missing persons. She’s smart and tough, but mostly she’s determined. A woman in a man’s world. Del enters this debut novel already well acknowledged as being good at what she does. Ironically, despite a lifelong search, the one person Del has never been able to find is the mother she’s never known. Secrets surround her mother’s existence. And her father, Roy Shannon, has guarded those secrets with vengeful determination. Even the family Bible’s genealogy pages have been torn away to conceal the past.

Whatever became of Ella Shannon?

When a seemingly unrelated federal investigation, into the infamous, faith healer, Silas Rule, brings authorities to her door, Del learns of an abandoned property in the clannish hill community of Nazareth Church, Kentucky— surprisingly still owned by her father. There, Del’s quest takes her into confrontation with this charismatic leader, who seems to hold the key. Is her mother alive or dead? And what secrets does the healer work to conceal? Only through Silas will Del find the answers. But can she survive the truth?

It’s an emotionally charged tale of love and retribution. I thrilled to writing it. I hope you’ll thrill to reading it.

NAZARETH CHILD is scheduled for release, from Midnight Ink/Llewellyn Worldwide Publishing, in September. It is currently available for PRE-ORDER on Amazon.

"James cranks up the tension while spinning a classic tale of good versus evil.” —Paul Levine, author of Lassiter.

www.darrelljames.com

Suddenly...

Inserting the element of surprise into a scene is crucial and yet some of the ways to introduce it strike me as phony. Phrases such as "just then," "all of a sudden," or "out of nowhere," smack of amateurism, and yet how else do we change the tempo and go for the startle factor?



I struggle with this as I create suspenseful scenes. I'll use one of the trite phrases and then rack my brain for ways to improve the writing, all the while keeping the shock and awe.




A sound can do it. "Bang!" The crack of gunfire. A ringing phone. The roar of an engine.



Employing phrases that are not so obvious can work as well, although sometimes when I reread things like Almost immediately or All at once, they grate on my ear. Am I just super picky?



Of course, surprise can be introduced almost matter-of-factly, and maybe that is the most powerful way to do it.



As I write this, I'm leafing through The Da Vinci Code for some illustrations for my point, when I come across this piece of narration on page 275:



A sudden movement behind him caught his attention. Out of nowhere, a crushing blow to the head knocked Langdon to his knees.



Out of nowhere? Hmmm. I don't think any of us would call Dan Brown an amateur.



What are your thoughts? Any tips to share on this topic? How do you transition to surprise?

Writing the Not-So-Cozy

Mayhem, murder, and million dollar properties...throw in a red-hot Realtor dodging danger (and closing deals) on Maine's craggy coast, and you have my first murder mystery, set to launch on April 1st. It's suspenseful -- and scary. But is it a cozy? I ddin't think so, until I read my review in Publishers Weekly.

The good folks at that worthy publication liked A House to Die For (thank you, writing Gods!) and called it "an appealing cozy." Huh? That description surprised me -- I thought I had cooked up a soft-boiled suspense novel. Had I really written a bona-fide cozy? Or penned something in between? Or maybe a merger of the two? And did it really matter?

Traditionally, cozy mysteries feature amateur sleuths, usually in small towns or villages, as well as recurring, generally likeable, characters. Violence occurs offstage, and profanity and explicit sex are taboo. Cozies emphasize strong plots and puzzle solving, and are seen as fun, engaging, reads that often revolve around a theme.

For me, a novice mystery writer, the term "cozy" conjured up a specific image: fluffy slippers, knitted afghans, and steaming cups of cocoa by a fire. To my way of thinking, a cozy did not make you squirm in your comfy position on the couch.

Gentle reader, I was selling this subgenre short. Romance -- suspense-- crime -- noir -- humor -- all can be modifiers for the complex cozy. And mine? I hope you'll read it and share your opinion. In the meantime, thanks for welcoming me to Midnight Ink and Inkspot.