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End of the Year round-up: What did I read in 2024?

/ Caron Allan / 4 Comments

I thought I’d end 2024 with a round-up of the books I’ve read. Usually I’ll waffle on about goals etc, but I thought I’d keep it simple. At the start of the year I planned to read an average of 1 book a week, to achieve a minimum of 52 books read by the end of the year, but I didn’t quite manage that. Still, I gave it my all!

They are mainly fiction, but there are a couple of non-fiction thrown in. I’m not including the books I just dip into for research etc. These are books I read cover to cover. Most of them, I highly recommend. There were a couple of disappointing ones here too, but I won’t tell you what I thought – reviews are necessarily subjective, and just because I didn’t take to a book, doesn’t mean you won’t love it and put it up there in your top ten.

Here’s my list.

  1. Poirot’s Early Cases – Agatha Christie
  2. A Scandalous Match – Jane Dunn
  3. A Citizen of All Times – Heike Wolf
  4. Writing a Cozy Mystery (nonfiction) – Nancy J Cohen
  5. Murder at the Spring Ball – Benedict Brown
  6. A Nice Class of Corpse – Simon Brett
  7. The Killings at Kingfisher Hill – Sophie Hannah
  8. The Gazebo – Patricia Wentworth
  9. The Case of William Smith – Patricia Wentworth
  10. Sparkling Cyanide – Agatha Christie
  11. The Dark Side of the Mind (nonfiction) – Kerry Daynes
  12. A Few Days in Endel – Lucilla Andrews
  13. Marsh Blood – Lucilla Andrews
  14. The Sinister Side – Lucilla Andrews
  15. Spotlight – Patricia Wentworth
  16. The Landscape of Death – M S Morris
  17. She Came Back (aka The Traveller Returns) – Patricia Wentworth
  18. Death Comes as the End – Agatha Christie
  19. The Appeal – Janice Hallett
  20. Out of the Past – Patricia Wentworth
  21. Death at a Shetland Festival – Marsali Taylor
  22. Cast, In Order of Disappearance – Simon Brett
  23. Murder on Sea – Julie Wassmer
  24. Three Act Tragedy – Agatha Christie
  25. Dead Man’s Prayer – Jackie Baldwin
  26. Slippery Creatures – KJ Charles
  27. Mrs, Presumed Dead – Simon Brett
  28. Mrs Pargeter’s Package – Simon Brett
  29. Mrs Pargeter’s Pound of Flesh – Simon Brett
  30. Mrs Pargeter’s Plot – Simon Brett
  31. The Body on the Beach – Simon Brett
  32. The Torso in the Town – Simon Brett
  33. Mrs Pargeter’s Point of Honour – Simon Brett
  34. Murder by the Seaside – Jackie Baldwin
  35. And Then She Was Gone – Lisa Jewell
  36. Murder Among the Roses – Liz Fielding
  37. Mrs Pargeter’s Principle – Simon Brett
  38. The Murder at the Museum – Simon Brett
  39. Murder at Castle Trapain – Jackie Baldwin
  40. Mrs Pargeter’s Public Relations – Simon Brett
  41. Mrs Pargeter’s Patio – Simon Brett
  42. Gin, Fizz and Tonic – Emma Baird
  43. The Hanging at the Hotel – Simon Brett
  44. Journey to Casablanca – Judith Cranswick
  45. Cowgirls do it Better #1 Redemption – Lila Dawes
  46. The Witness at the Wedding – Simon Brett
  47. The Body in the Library – Agatha Christie
  48. The Stabbing at the Stables – Simon Brett
  49. The Weapon and the Fruit: Four and Twenty Blackboards – L E Bendon
  50. The Twyford Code – Janice Hallett

As you can see, I didn’t quite make it to my goal of an average of 1 book per week. There’s still time, but I doubt I’ll complete two more books before the 31st.

(Note to self: Must try harder!)

And you’ll notice the prevalence of Simon Brett’s work… What can I say, it’s been a tough year, so I needed plenty of light and engaging reading.

What have you been reading this year?

Many thanks for all your support in 2024, I hope to see you in 2025. A wonderful Christmas and a very happy New Year to all.

***

Looking back at old work

/ Caron Allan

I saw this quote by Dean Koontz recently and it made me reflect on all the other stories that haven’t made it as far as publication. I’m talking about my stories here, not other peoples’.

I have written many, many more books than I have published. and I think that is often the case for other authors.

As authors, we have to serve an apprenticeship of writing. We have to learn our craft, just like a teacher learns to teach, a surgeon learns how to operate, or a dinner lady learns where the kids have to line up to come into the dining hall at school.

No one ‘just knows’. Okay, you might have a facility with words, you might be brimming over with fantastic ideas, but that doesn’t guarantee that what you write will be readable or marketable. and you need to be able to repeat the performance again and again.

Another (very) early work, written on the back of Weetabix packets… circa 1970

So it doesn’t surprise me that even an eminent author like Dean Koontz may have dry times when nothing seems to work sales-wise. Or that he seems to feel it took him a while to get started.

When I look back on some of my early stories, I cringe at the crass ideas, the overused plots, the terrible, stilted dialogue. Or the lack of knowledge. In one story I had a crocodile chasing a woman for miles up a steep hill. (Hint, that wouldn’t happen in real life. Like me, crocodiles are not fans of long steep walks uphill.)

In a way it can be discouraging to look back and think, I had zero talent, this is awful. (And, quite often people still think this about my writing, even though I’ve come on in leaps and bounds over the last thirty years!) On the other hand, every so often you can come across a paragraph, or even just a phrase, where the sun seems to shine through and you think, now that, is most definitely, a good bit.

So in no particular order, here are some of the stories that didn’t (yet, though who knows) make it:

I still mainly write my first drafts by hand – that gives me the excuse of buying more notebooks…

Jobshare: the idea was, a famous author hires a stand-in to take his place so he can disappear for a while to concentrate on writing not just a new book but a whole new genre he has not tried before. The lookalike was murdered, but who was the intended victim – the author or the lookalike. I think we’ll probably never know. This one had more holes than a fishing net.

The Soft Impeachment: even worse than it sounds, this was a cringe-fest of a romance. Luckily for you, I haven’t published it. But it was the first full length novel I ever completed, back in the early 1980s, and it was this that showed me I could do it, no matter what anyone said.

Dolly: I changed the working title of this to Babygirl once I started work on the Dottie Manderson mysteries, but it’s still never made it out of the filing cabinet. The idea is that a famous actress has just buried her adoptive mother and goes in search of her birth mother, only for her birth mother to be murdered. Who was the villain, the actress’s boyfriend, her unknown father, the dodgy care home owner, or someone else. Hint: I have no idea.

These were the only really early ones I actually finished, though there are a number of others that stalled around the third to halfway mark.

Even a bad book needs a bit of planning!

These are the almost-rans, written within the last twenty years and still in line for revision and maybe even, one day, publication:

Humanity: this was my vampire novel, written in 2002-3 after we returned from Australia after five years away, and I wanted to do something new. Sadly, I lost faith in the project when the TV series Being Human came out. It’s the same idea really – can a vampire hold on to their human qualities and carve out a life for themselves in the real world? Here’s a teeny extract:

  He moved along the road.  Cautious.  Keeping to the darkest shadows.  Nothing coming from either direction.  Middle of the night.  Not a single light on in any of the houses.

  He wiggled the fingers clutched to his side.  Sticky.  Very Sticky.  (Q: What’s brown and sticky, Uncle Neal?  A: A stick!  Nephews and nieces laughing.  God, kids tell such corny jokes.  Seems like some things never change.)

  As he crossed a pool of lamplight, he didn’t need to look down at himself to know that he was still bleeding.  The blood had soaked one side of his shirt and now it alternately flapped heavily or stuck to him, cold, and filled his whole body with a nauseating chill that had become frighteningly familiar.  It felt like every heartbeat pumped more blood out of the tear in his body.  The wound felt massive, like a huge rip in the side of an ocean liner, yet he knew it wasn’t as bad as that.  But he needed to rest.  Had to get himself inside somewhere. 

I have a soft spot for this book, so maybe one day, it will see the light of day…

The Refuge: another book that I can’t quite let go of, and have been thinking of reworking and releasing for several years now. It’s about ‘found family’ I suppose, though I didn’t know that term then. It’s about people surviving the destruction of their town and fleeing to a refuge in the mountains, and their attempts to survive, and like Humanity, it’s about whether we can hold on to ourselves in a time of crisis, and rebuild a life. If you like, you can read more about it here:

The Silent Woman: is a ghost story with a bunch of people who are ghost hunters, but it’s more to do with solving mysteries than just investigating the paranormal. There are a couple of chapters and a bit more information about this book here: 

Like many authors, I often feel I am made up of things I have written. A bit like, I don’t know, baggage maybe, or more like photographs of loved ones, we writers carry these stories with us everywhere we go, no matter what we do, and I believe that every new story we write is built upon the shoulders of these story-memories. It’s part of who I am, and I love it.

***

Looking ahead to Autumn and new things…

/ Caron Allan / 2 Comments

Our maple is already wearing its Autumn hues

It’s still the height of summer (not that you’d know it from the 19⁰C and wet weather we’ve had this week, in contrast to last week’s high 20s and even low 30s) yet already I’m turning my face towards Autumn.

I know I say this every year, but for me, it is not Spring, but Autumn and Winter that form my season of creativity. I have no idea why this is. I don’t know why, but for me, autumn is not the season for rest and consolidation, but of flights of imagination taking wings. I get quite excited about the approach of autumn and winter. Maybe it’s the cuddly jumpers, I don’t know.

It seems as though the rest of the world is full of new life in the Spring. Is it because I’m an October baby, my lifecycle naturally starts from Autumn onwards? Or because when we lived in Brisbane what seems like a lifetime ago, October was in the Spring? But how can five years there undo the habits of the other fifty-nine years I’ve lived in the Northern Hemisphere? Or maybe it’s because for parents everywhere in the UK, Autumn is when the children go back to school and you at last get two minutes to sit in silence and just enjoy hearing – nothing. Ah, bliss!

Started a new notebook today too – a cause for celebration in itself!

As I’ve mentioned a few times, in our house things have been tough since last October but now, today, I feel something stirring again. It’s a feeling, a bit like being pregnant, a sense of something wonderful happening in the hidden depths, a private joy that no one else is able to share or even aware of. It’s the buzzing of new ideas, of fresh creative energy, a sense of gentle excitement that says, ‘Hmm, I think something is coming…’ I love it, it’s such a special feeling, and it can only mean one thing.

I think I feel a new story coming on…

***

Unmasking the culprit

/ Caron Allan

This post kind of continues from a previous post about how the killer in a traditional murder mystery such as the ones I write–or try to–is always ‘one of us’. It’s important that the killer IS one of us. (You can read that one here, if you like: One Of Us?)

But I have to say, if I read a mystery and the perpetrator is revealed as someone barely mentioned, or the author uses that old chestnut, the guilty butler, or any other member of staff, I am SO bitterly disappointed–with both the story, and in fact the author. Because it just feels like a let-down, like the author ‘phoned it in’, as they say, ie couldn’t be bothered to do a proper job. Even some of my favourite authors indulged in this heinous practice!

In his essay, The Decline of the English Mystery, George Orwell wrote, ‘The perfect murderer is a humdrum little man (or woman, I say!) of the professional classes.’

I think most people could agree that when they read a murder mystery, the most satisfying part of the book is trying to beat the sleuth to the finish line. Or at least, to be able to nod sagely at the end and say, ‘I knew it!’ as the killer is revealed.

We’ve come a long way from this scenario: ‘God must search out the solution to this crime because only He knows the secrets of the heart.’ (Revelations of a Lady Detective, William Stephens Hayward, 1864) Now, we as readers want to take God’s place and work it out for ourselves. Is it because we want to impose a rigid order on our lives, or have complete control over something? Who knows. We could write a philosophical paper on why we enjoy crime books when we (most of us, anyway) are vehemently opposed to violence in real life.

I have to say, I do get a thrill when the murderer turns out to be someone I had completely ruled out or overlooked. I like to be surprised but I also, more than anything, like to be convinced. So if the evidence is flimsy or entirely circumstantial, I don’t buy into it at all. I need to know the why of it far more than how or all the other questions. After all, in a traditional type of murder mystery the guilty party must have a compelling and urgent necessity to take such a drastic act. Otherwise, they could simply move to another town and live under a new name. Or something normal like that.. and bear in mind that many of the most popular murder mysteries are set in the past when there was capital punishment in Britain, and that in many other places there still is today. Why would someone risk losing their own life if not for some absolutely necessary reason?

So here are a few must-haves for the killer of a traditional murder mystery:

  1. They have to appear innocuous or be excluded from being ‘the one who did it’.
  2. If possible they should be genial, amiable and pleasant to most people, and get on with everyone (apart from the victim lol )
  3. They will be very aware of every move the victim makes, and take a lot of trouble to keep themselves informed.
  4. They need to be pretty intelligent to outsmart–for a while at least–the sleuth who will be coming after them.
  5. In spite of being pleasant, genial etc they also should reveal–gradually–an arrogant side with a large dollop of superiority complex: they believe they are able to outwit everyone, and are better than anyone, and that their motive completely justifies or exonerates their action.
  6. Lastly, they will crave attention and status; this means they love to get involved in the investigation into the death of the victim. They want to keep themselves informed in order to plan their next move, and to make sure they are safe.

In mysteries, many killers merely carry out the act to cover their butts: the victim knows something, or has the power to do something that threatens the killer’s safety in some way, whether it is their actual liberty at risk, their financial position, their social status, or the safety or fidelity of a loved one. It must be an utterly compelling reason for them. Occasionally they act out of revenge or pure hatred.

The killer displays a persona – derived from the latin word for mask – to hide their true nature from everyone they encounter.

If they are truly psychopathic, they will feed off the admiration of others and continually find ways–subtle and not-so-subtle–to make sure everyone knows how clever they are. Sometimes this will lead them to offer to help the detective, or sometimes this will lead to another death, as they either have to cover up the first crime, or feel a need to display their ingenuity.

In the case of serial killers, another death can be the result of their urge to experience that sense of fulfilment and power they got from the act of killing itself. They crave that thrill as an addict craves their addictive substance. The pressure is then on for the sleuth to find the killer to prevent yet another death. And often, the author will ensure that tension ratchets up a notch or three by having the next potential victim someone the sleuth really cares about.

In fact the concept of the powerful killer is no such thing. As the story reaches its denouement, they are revealed not as powerful but weak, because they do not have the ability to be satisfied with being ordinary, or to shake off the slights in life that the rest of us just have to get over.

The most exciting, most fulfilling moment of the story, for us as readers, is that moment when the detective shines the spotlight on Mr or Ms Nice-Person, their mask of geniality is ripped away and they are revealed for the evil beast they truly are. And our reaction to this – surprise or joyous confirmation of our own suspicions – is a tribute to the author’s dexterity in manipulating our expectations.

Wow!

 

The world of the murder mystery

/ Caron Allan / 4 Comments

Not sure this guy is really a detective, or just a businessman who is late for a meeting.

As you may know, I love traditional detective fiction aka murder mysteries. You can get mysteries where there’s no murder, but if the stakes aren’t high, my attention isn’t grabbed. And if you’re here, reading this, the chances are, you probably like them too!

In the old Golden Age of detective fiction, there is generally a Countess clutching her pearls, casting disapproving looks at the corpse leaking blood onto her Aubusson carpet, and declaring that surely the perpetrator is some stranger, some tramp or wandering vagabond. ‘It can’t possibly be one of us.’

For me, the thrill of these books is the certain knowledge that, yes, it is most definitely one of ‘us’. One of these characters, outwardly so genteel, so polite, offering around the drinks decanter, or standing when a lady comes into the room, or smiling pleasantly and asking after the vicar’s marrows, it’s one of them. Most of them have known each other for years and see each other almost every day out walking the dog or playing tennis, or at drinks parties or dinner parties, at bridge evenings and coffee mornings. (Because this is the life of villagers of that era, we feel.)

An old lady with glasses can be the rich countess, or the village spinster/busybody. She doesn’t mind whose role she plays so long as she’s busy and well paid in scones and tea.

Like the suspects now before us, we too would like to believe that those around us are just like us, and thereby comes the assumption that no one ‘like us’ could possibly do something so sordid as to kill another person. Because such an action implies loss of self-control, unacceptable levels of emotion, and of course, a denial of the never-say-die attitude that instils us with hope for a better tomorrow. Or if not better, then at least no worse.

So when someone—let’s call him Major Wainwright—is found underneath the billiard table with his head bashed in or a hat pin piercing his eye to skewer his brain, we automatically think, no one I know could possibly commit such an act. Therefore, it could only have been done by someone ‘not from here’. Here endeth the first act of our little fiction.

Sorry about that graphic image, by the way, that fictional situation got really bad, really fast, didn’t it? I’ve been reading Agatha Christie this week, in case you’re wondering. And while I’ve got you here, I’ve no idea why it’s always a major. I can only assume that a warrant officer or a corporal just doesn’t have the same ring?

But when we look at those cast members or story characters around us, we suddenly think, how well do we really know them? This is what writers sometimes call the second act world of the ‘unknown’ or the ‘new world’, where we suddenly see everyone as different and unknowable.

Let’s look at this bunch of weirdos and oddballs.

Take the major’s wife, for example. She’s known for her knitting circles and good works. As is the vicar’s wife, busily visiting the elderly and infirm, taking care of the vulnerable.

The major enjoys civil war reenactments, often heard to say ‘That’s not how I would have done it.’

Then there’s the vicar himself. Does he really need to spend so much time shut away in his office muttering scriptures or Latin phrases to himself? What’s he really doing in there?

What about Miss Simmons, the village busybody, who knows everyone and everyone’s history. They say she has a heart of gold, but is she really over that old romance? After all, she’s never married, does she still carry a torch for that certain someone? These country villages seem to always have a nosy old woman. (Often that’s me.)

What about the village doctor—I bet he knows a secret or two.

Then there are the rest who can change from story to story, as required: there might be a visiting artist, or an aunt from another village, or perhaps a daughter just returned from university to care for an elderly father who once threatened the organist with his walking stick. And of course we have the organist himself. But don’t stop there, there’s the butler, the maid, a hotel owner, the owner of the knitting wool shop… oh all sorts of people. Maybe a weekending couple, he is ‘something in the city’ and she is a famous model, renowned for her torrid affairs before she settled down to marry a man twenty years older than herself. There might even be a gay couple, known locally as ‘artistic’, (that was euphemism my mum used for a couple of gay men we knew when I was a child in the early 60s, when same-sex relationships between men were illegal) in those unenlightened days, they may have been viewed with suspicion.

But in spite of all these people with their secret backgrounds, their secrets thoughts, ideas and attitudes, we still keep coming back to the same thing: surely no one I know would commit such a vicious crime?

But how well do I really know these people? As I watch them gathered around the corpse, their various emotions—triumph, relief, satisfaction, fear, horror, dismay, anger, sorrow—fleetingly appearing on their faces, I’m forced to admit it feels as though I am in a room filled with strangers.

It’s the job of acts 2 and 3 to follow the clues, not be tricked by the red herrings, and to unmask all their carefully concealed plans and desires and arrive at the truth. Any one of them could be the killer…

And for readers of mysteries, that’s the beauty of it!

***

Death at a Shetland Festival by Marsali Taylor #DEATHATASHETLANDFESTIVAL

/ Caron Allan

About Death At A Shetland Festival:

Crowds are gathered for a concert at Shetland’s renowned folk music festival when there’s a shocking discovery – international folk legend Fintan Foley has been stabbed backstage.

Sailing sleuth Cass Lynch and her partner DI Gavin Macrae are in the audience and must untangle a complicated case where nothing is quite what it seems. Cass soon discovers that Foley’s smiling stage persona concealed links with Shetland. He’d worked here in the 80s, the days when oil brought wealth to the islands.

Has a long-buried secret risen to the surface – and will it make Cass a target for a cold-blooded killer?

Review:

The folk festival is in full swing, and everyone is having a high old time – until, on the very first night, a man is found dead in the cloakroom! Everything seems to point to him having ‘history’ with the area, but no one wants to tell what they know. If indeed they know anything – the dead man knew how to keep a secret, and no one seems to quite know everything.

As a special unit of police from the mainland investigate, and Gavin, the local detective inspector is sidelined, his partner Cass who was with him at the festival on the night of the murder quickly finds herself drawn into the mystery.

Without saying too much or spoiling any surprises or plot points, this book has two facets to it: the here-and-now modern day mystery, and the events of the early 1980s, and each of these crucially sheds light on the other as the story progresses.

As always, Cass Lynch is unable to curb her curiosity and bit by bit she pieces the truth together – and still manages to squeeze in a spot of sailing, tea with her pals and spend time with her beloved cats.

The ending is by turns nail-biting and moving, but satisfying.

This is a tense, absorbing page-turner of a book, and definitely Marsali Taylor’s best yet. I thoroughly enjoyed this new mystery and highly recommend it.

About the author: 

Marsali Taylor grew up near Edinburgh, and came to Shetland as a newly-qualified teacher. She is currently a part-time teacher on Shetland’s scenic west side, living with her husband and two Shetland ponies. Marsali is a qualified STGA tourist-guide who is fascinated by history, and has published plays in Shetland’s distinctive dialect, as well as a history of women’s suffrage in Shetland. She’s also a keen sailor who enjoys exploring in her own 8m yacht, and an active member of her local drama group.

Click here to buy now from Amazon!

Catch up with Marsali Taylor on Facebook – click here

Or take a look at the author’s website here!

And the author’s page on Amazon can be found here

Don’t forget to check out these other blog posts too:

#DEATHATASHETLANDFESTIVAL

***

The Postcard: a short story

/ Caron Allan

Here’s a short story I wrote a LONG time ago…

‘Have you finished that contract yet?’

My manager’s voice cut into my little lonely bubble and made me jump half out of my skin. He glowered a bit, angry with me for being startled, but he was somewhat mollified when I told him I only had two more pages to go out of the original thirty-two.

‘By lunchtime, yeah?’ he reminded me as he moved away to pester someone else.

I can’t stand it here. I’ve been here a month, but it feels like a life-sentence. A weekend is just not enough parole time after the working week that precedes it.

I stared at the postcard my predecessor left pinned to the hessian wall of the cubicle. It shows a ramshackle cottage on a beach, an empty beach, with palm trees and golden sand that seems to stretch on for miles, lapped by blue, blue water. And nothing else. No one else.

The cottage wasn’t really a cottage, it was more like a shed or a hut. The roof looks like it would blow away in a hurricane. And this looks like the kind of place where they actually have hurricanes, somewhere hot, tropical. And the walls don’t exactly look sound. There are cracks between the boards—I can imagine all kinds of creepy crawlies getting in through those. There’s only one small window, partially boarded over. There’s a wonky railing around what appears to be a microscopic veranda.

But all the same… it calls to me. Wish you were here? Oh yes, I most certainly do.

With each passing day I’ve looked at it more and more. My eyes are drawn to it.

On Monday, after a tense weekend of knowing what awaits me once Sunday is over, I return to my cell, turn on my computer, and take my first look of the week at the card.

Then work begins: a constant stream of emails, calls, online meetings, in-person meetings, assessments, reassessments, and always those annoying little, ‘I wonder if you could just pop this on your to-do list’ or, ‘Sorry Jan/Lynne/Suzie from accounts/Jeff/Steve haven’t quite been able to get to this, so if you could just help a chap out and…’

I get my head down and get on with things. Lunch breaks are a myth in this place, as is their reputed work-life balance. Most of the time, I hardly look up from my desk until half an hour after I should have gone home. There’s always more still to do, and I usually find I’ve two or three hours after Jan, Lynne or Suzie and the rest of them. That’s Monday madness.

Tuesday is not a lot better, though I quite often get a lunch break and I usually leave more or less on time, maybe an hour at most of overtime. I glance at the picture several times on a Tuesday.

Wednesday is easier—the lull before the end-of-the-week storm. Usually I catch up with my workload from the week before, which keeps me busy—so much so that I often forget all about the little hut.

Thursday things start to get crazy again—contracts to complete, information to chase, people to call, emails, meetings, and yet more calls followed by more meetings. It’s manic but still only a dress rehearsal for Frantic Friday. It’s a bit like grocery shopping the last weekend before Christmas—total chaos with everyone grabbing haphazardly at things just in case they never get any food again.

Friday. So close to the weekend but such a horror to live through week after week. That’s when I seek refuge the most often, gazing at the picture, really drinking in that impossibly blue sky, reflected in the improbably blue water, the wide expanse of deserted beach. As if by the sheer force of my concentration I could transport myself there. I can almost hear the soft sound of the water washing up onto the shore.

Our office is huge. And we are all tucked away in our little cells—our cubicles which accommodate our desk, chairs, computer, phone and trays upon trays of paperwork. I remember once years ago people used to say that using computer systems would make most administration processes redundant, and that there would be a huge reduction in paperwork. The strange, alluring legend of the paperless office. There are eighty-six of us on this floor. Eighty-six computers all warming the heavy recycled air with their hot little components. Eighty-six chairs on rollers that don’t quite roll. Eighty-six miserable people kept in little squares like veal calves or stray dogs waiting to be adopted, euthanised or housed temporarily until either retirement or death claims us—either one is good at the moment.

They play the radio over the PA system—to ‘keep up morale’. The problem is, there is only one radio, and eighty-six tastes in music. I find it so stressful to listen to boy bands and rock chicks and divas all day long. It’s mentally exhausting. But it’s not as bad as Talk Radio. That’s the worst. People ringing in to talk about the tragedies in their life, breaking your heart as you reply to the fourteenth email about the same—still unresolved—issue.

Then there’s the constant toing and froing of the workers—like being perpetually on some crowded stairs—figures bustling back and forth, not friends, not visitors, just milling about, clattering by in noisy heels on the wood-effect flooring. Dropping stuff right behind you. Laughing loudly or sobbing quietly into their coffee.

I bet none of that happens on that little beach. I bet it’s quiet all the time. If I sat on that little veranda, I bet all I would hear, if I closed my eyes would be the soft rustling of the palm trees, the sound of the occasional bird overhead, the sound of the waves and my own calm breath, moving in and out and washing away my tension.

I bet no one ever yells out ‘What the hell has happened to the accounting software updates?’ Or, ‘Does anyone know how to unjam printer seven?’

I bet if people ever came to that hut they would bring a small gift—some fruit, perhaps or maybe some flowers. And I’d make tea, and we could sit on that veranda and look at the water. We could talk if we wanted to, but I wouldn’t mind if we didn’t.

‘What happened to that blue folder marked ‘urgent’?’ my manager barks in my ear suddenly, and I accidentally type half a dozen letter Ys on the screen as I jerk round to look at him. He glares at me again. ‘Daydreaming again? For God’s sake, keep you mind on your work. Then maybe folders wouldn’t keep disappearing.’

He’s gone again and I’m fighting back tears. It seems so unfair that I’m here in this place when there are places like the one on the postcard on the wall. I know people say we all have bad days, you’ll feel better tomorrow. But this dread, this slow, cold death has been going on for decades. What if it’s not how I feel in a passing moment of self-pity but it’s the length and breadth of my whole existence?

This is all I’ve ever known. All I’m likely to know until I retire. It’s no good telling me that when I retire I can do all the things I’ve dreamed of, like travelling. Why do I have to wait until my life is almost over to begin enjoying it? I don’t just need a holiday, I need a whole change of life.

I’m hardly thinking. I reach out and grab the postcard off the wall. Do I dare? Am I crazy? I lean down under the desk to pull out my bag. Before I even know what I’m going to do, I’ve thrust the postcard inside and put my bag under my arm. I turn and look around me. I see nothing here that is mine. I get up. I walk away down the aisle to the lift, hardly daring to breathe.

At the lift door, I wait impatiently. When it arrives and the door opens, I feel a sense of excitement, of doing something terribly naughty yet wonderful. I step inside before anyone tries to stop me. As the doors close, I realise no one has even noticed me leave, and as the lift doors close, I wonder how long it will be before they realise I’ve gone.

No one even sees me walk out of the big double front doors. No one. I’m nothing to them. As I hurry down the hill towards the railway station, so aware of the precious cargo in my bag, I feel a slight pang of guilt.

Perhaps I should have left the postcard to brighten the day of the next poor sap that occupies my cubicle.

*

Job vacancy: armchair sleuth required (readvertised)

/ Caron Allan / 3 Comments

 

We at LaughingAtLife.org (not a real company!) have a new part-time vacancy for the role of armchair sleuth.

About this role:

You must be ready, willing and able to deliver timely advice to all suspects and potential victims. (But not too timely. Whilst we agree that forewarned is forearmed, if you’re too good at your job, you may find the number of victims drops alarmingly and you are left with no one to investigate/suspect which will lead to everyone at LaughingAtLife.org moving into the genre of romance. Or maybe Fantasy. No one at LaughingAtLife.org wants that to happen.)

You should be highly experienced in delivering comments such as ‘I knew that was going to happen’ or ‘You could write this (insert offensive vocabulary here) stuff yourself!’

If you have fancied taking part in shows such as Gogglebox, this job could be for you!

Essential qualifications:

Eagle-eyed attention to detail.

Nerves of steel.

Ability to pick locks with a hair pin or safety pin. Or a lock-pick.

Suspicious of everyone and everything. Make remarks such as ‘Oh really?’ and ‘Feel free to be open and honest with me, I will discover the truth in the end.’

Be liable to take all alibis with a pinch of salt. Or snuff.

Able to sniff out spurious motives and supply educated guesswork.

Must possess own monocle or pince-nez or (misplaced) reading glasses (on colour-coded ribbons or fine cord – not too long though, you don’t want someone to strangle you with said reading  glasses cord, do you?).

Should be able to demonstrate a long-established habit of putting your fingertips together in a thoughtful manner before speaking.

You must have a luxurious moustache which you continually fondle or trim or dye a suspiciously dark colour. This role is open to all genders in our commitment to non-discrimination.

Or, failing the moustache, you may have a knitting fetish, and take knitting everywhere with you so that you are ready at a moment’s notice to disarm suspects with your apparent inoffensiveness and the sense of calm rationality that you radiate.

Must be able to recall a long series of villagey anecdotes you can crowbar into any conversation.

Must know the difference between a colonel and a major. Must equally be conversant with the differences between life-peers and the other sort, whatever they are. And of course, ministers of religion and local politicians. Must know how to address a Dowager without causing universal embarrassment at the knitting circle or Ladies’ Bright Hour.

Must be able to shake your head sorrowfully from time to time and say, ‘The world is a very wicked place’ or make some quote about the universal fallibility of mankind.

Additional desirable qualifications:

Knowledge of Shakespeare, Milton and the Bible useful. Possibly also Tennyson. (but we at LaughingAtLife.org do not insist on Tennyson.)

Must not be liable to scream or faint when confronted with a gory scene. Must know exactly where to place fingers on the neck to discover the non-existent pulse of a victim.

Encyclopaedic knowledge of deadly fungi and herbs could come in handy. Ditto household chemicals. Or medicines.

Must be able to dip fingertip in any powdery drug and taste it without dying, and also must be able to identify said drug.

Salary:

There is no salary, just the reward of knowing you did your best, and served your country. Or, failing that, completed at least one matinee jacket for the new baby of a friend of a friend of a friend.

Perks:

Sadly, neither are there any perks. There is no holiday allowance, as every time you go on holiday, someone will do something stupid and you will find yourself ‘embroiled’ in a new murder case. Even if you have a staycation, the grumpy colonel in the Old Manor House will upset someone who will then disguise themselves as a vicar and whack the colonel over the head 47 times with a fire-iron. You will of course realise that this was almost inevitable given the colonel’s generally offensive manner, and also it will be just what happened with Mrs Castle’s little boy in Northampton when he skived off school that day in 1948.

There is no sick pay, apart from the satisfaction that your last days will be repackaged and sold as Mr X’s or Ms Y’s Final Cases with a picture of the actor who plays your role on the front cover.

How to Apply:

Seriously?

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Rewriting a novel – a nuts and bolts approach

/ Caron Allan / 4 Comments

(This post first appeared in 2017 when I was invited to do a guest spot on Pink Glitter Publishing for my dear friend and author Emma Baird.) And sorry, it’s another really long post this week…

I love rewriting. There, I’ve said it. I think I could be the only person in the history of the world who actually enjoys rewriting. In fact, I like it a lot more than writing the first draft. I hate that bit. Okay, maybe not hate. I love the thrill of writing the first 50 pages or so, when it’s all fresh and exciting, and it begins to unfold on the page. Love that. But…sooner or later I always hit the first-draft wall. I know it’s because I don’t plot. I’m a pantser. So sue me, I hate to plot. If I plan out my book, on some level I feel I’ve already told the story already and it loses it’s allure.

But that makes the initial experience of writing a draft rather an emotional, rivers-deep-mountains-high kind of affair. But… rewriting, oh that is a whole new thing. I LOVE rewriting. You are free from the ‘burden’ of creating and, taking a distancing step back from your work, you can begin to rethink, polish and tidy. I love to tidy. Sometimes I can only do this by laying all the pages out on the floor and wracking my brains over which order this mess is supposed to go in.

Hemingway famously said, ‘Write drunk, edit sober.’ I haven’t tried it, but it might work for you. I have to say, editing sometimes makes me feel like I need a little help…

Don’t revise as you go. I know there are always a few people for whom that system works, but trust me, it’s not for most people. You get so bogged down in the detail that you never progress. I know people who have spent literally years rewriting the same first three chapters and have never finished the book. It makes me so sad. Write the whole book, from beginning to end, always looking forwards, pressing on till you reach ‘The End’. If you can’t remember the names and places mentioned earlier in the story, just do what I do and put a massive X, or XX, or Mr Thingy, or What Was Her Name, The One With The Long Blonde Hair, in its place. Or refer to a list of names and places you create as you go along.

It’s so much easier to revise a whole book. Like creating a sculpture, you’ve got that solid block to chip away at. You’ve got the overall shape and idea to work on. Your book is your outline. (You can thank Mary Wibberley for that bit of advice in her book from decades ago, To Writers With Love.)

After finishing your first draft, don’t immediately start revisions. Unless you are on the clock and the deadline is almost on you (we’ve all done it), put the book away for as long as you can. This is the perfect time to write another book. Yes, really. Leave your first draft for at least a few weeks, ideally a few months, or even a year. You will need to approach it next time around with a good degree of detachment to get out of writer mode and into rewriter mode. Then, when you’ve finished the next book, while that is ‘maturing’, you can go back to the previous one. Or, if you’ve a) got all the time in the world, or b) you’ve decided to write a series and publish fairly close together, now could be the perfect time to write book three!

Gary Cooper pondering that tricky scene just before the end of chapter six.

So you’re ready to start. Read it. Don’t write, don’t type, don’t tweak, fiddle, twiddle or jiggle. Just read the whole story through from beginning to end. You are trying to get an overview, to reacquaint yourself with your story. Afterwards, make notes on how you felt about the book. Does the story hang together? Does the plot progress logically (unless an illogical plot is essential to your story)? Do you have that sensation of tripping up as you read—a bit like when you miss a stair and think you’re falling—that’s when there’s a problem, usually a plot problem. Try to pinpoint what it was that made you feel like that. Put a sticky note on the page, or if a computer file, highlight the section, or bookmark it, or make a note in the Track Changes feature if using Word.

If you’re frustrated by not being able to make changes as you spot them, or worried you might forget, again, as already suggested, make notes in the Track Changes feature of Word, or pencil notes in the margin, or use sticky notes if working with a paper copy, just don’t change the body of the book yet. Hopefully after rereading the whole book, you will be able to see the strengths and weaknesses of your draft. You will see what needs to go. If not, give it to a trusted friend or writing pal to read. Ask them to be honest and not just pat you on the back. Rewriting can feel very much like ‘fixing problems’ or putting right things that are wrong, and with this mind-set, this can be quite demoralising. Don’t get into this trap. Remember, you’re polishing, refining. Putting flesh on a flexible framework. It’s all good.

Save your original draft, and make a copy with a new version name, just in case in the end, you’re not happy with what you’ve done and need to revert and give it another go. Again, we’ve all done that, I think. Give yourself a fall back position.

Start tinkering. Start with the easy stuff like consistency of character description and behaviour, check the names, spellings, and personal details of all characters, check place-names are correct and consistent throughout. Then move on to point of view. With POV, consistency is everything. If you’re writing anything other than an omniscient third person viewpoint, then there will be things your main characters cannot know until it is revealed to them. Make sure you’ve nailed that.

Next, check for all those words you overuse. For me, that’s words like So, And and Also. A friend of mine uses Thus in almost every paragraph… it’s really annoying. If you use unusual words to describe something, don’t repeat them more than once (if that) as unusual words stick in the reader’s mind and break the wonderful spell you’ve created of suspending disbelief: the worst possible offence you can commit as a writer of fiction. Don’t rip your reader from the story and plunge them back into the real world. Make less use of unusual words such as coterie or Schadenfreude, these are words that stand out from the page, and stick in your reader’s mind. If you use clichés—please don’t—but if you absolutely must, do it just once, don’t repeat them. You also don’t need to show off all the big words you know. Nine times out of ten, the simple, direct phrase will work better than anything flowery, waffly or too complicated. Keep it simple.

And if like me you write books set in the 1930s or 1960s – check for anachronistic things – things that weren’t invented then, hadn’t been discovered, developed or couldn’t be done, differences of etiquette, speech patterns, all the stuff that has furious readers turning to Goodreads or Amazon and saying, ‘1*, couldn’t possibly get past the comment about using a zip! In 1920? Hardly!’ Because believe me, those little things make a big difference to a reader and can ruin the whole reading experience. If in doubt, ask someone, or ask Mr Google.

Brain boggle is a normal part of revising your book. Don’t worry about it. Have a nice soothing cuppa and relax for a bit.

Check hyphenation, apostrophe use, adverbs and speech tags. I don’t agree with the ‘don’t use adverbs, they’re evil’ approach, but use them sparingly. (See what I did there?) Keep metaphors and especially similes to a minimum, unless you’re writing poetry; they are also irritating. Don’t use fussy speech tags: he responded, she retorted, he espoused, she countered, etc. Once in a while is fine, but you don’t need to tag every speech, just enough so the reader knows who said what. The word ‘said’, 90% of the time, is the best speech tag there is, it’s invisible, the reader will pass on, aware of who is speaking but not bothered about how – that should be clear from the context and what they say. Again, keep it simple.

Tidy your grammar, get rid of typos and unnecessary repetition. Check your tense scenes or action scenes for long, meandering sentences that slow the reader down and take forever to read so that the reader can’t remember what you were talking about, and they have to go back to the beginning to reread, trying to figure out the meaning (like that, for example – four lines for one sentence??? Too much, unless you’re writing War and Peace). Check slow, reflective, emotional or romantic scenes for accidentally humorous clangers, (my often quoted, ‘and then he opened the door in his pyjamas’), or break-neck short sentences that rush the reader too quickly through the text.

Read it again. And again. Tweak as you go, now, but remember some changes will have a knock-on effect and need to be addressed multiple times throughout the book. Now pass the draft to your close friends/beta-readers/book group, for your first round of major feedback. You can’t, sadly, trust yourself entirely to write, polish, edit, proofread, proofread, edit and polish then proofread. you’ll need help. If affordable, get professional help, go with a recommended person or business, not someone you pluck from nowhere unless they have incredible feedback. Otherwise keep to a small trusted group of serious writers and readers who have excellent language skills and a kind, tactful way of letting you know when something’s not quite right. If you use more than one beta-reader, you might find they contradict one another – then all you can do is go with the majority and trust your gut.

Then—I hate to say it—you need to do it all again. I read somewhere that if you don’t hate your book by the time it is published, you haven’t done enough work on it, and believe me I’ve come so close to hating a couple of my books. Your book is not ready for your editor or proofreader until you are absolutely convinced that it’s perfect. Trust me, it won’t be. But it’ll be pretty close. Make sure you are not the only one to do the ‘extra final final proofread’ – you’ll definitely miss something.

As an editor, I’d say there’s nothing worse than getting a script that should be as close to release-ready as an author can make it, but turns out to be little more than a first draft. It’s like seeing a neglected child. And when you make your first sale or get a really wonderful review, it will feel like it was worth every minute.

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Author interview: historical fiction author Heike Wolf

/ Caron Allan

It’s been forever since I managed to nab someone unlucky enough to be interviewed by me, but what could be better than a chat with a writer of historical fiction? Heike Wolf is the author of a number of books that tell the story of people living through different eras of German history, and she has a real flair for bringing the past to life and making the characters so real and relatable. How does she do that? And what is her inspiration? Let’s find out!

Hi Heike, and welcome. It’s great to have you here.

You and I have got to know one another through the amazing work you’ve done in editing the German translations (translated by the brilliant Stef Mills) of my Dottie Manderson mysteries. And although we’ve chatted in the past, I almost forgot that you had an actual life with other interests – and a day job as an author.

What kind of books do you write? And what is it about them that fires your inspiration?

I write historical fiction. I have been a history buff for as long as I can remember and when I read or hear about historic events, I’m immediately involved emotionally: trying to picture, to actually feel, how people experienced these events, how they felt, what they thought, what the world looked, sounded like, smelled like at that point. It’s the people behind the history that fascinate me.

When I plan a new book I first read about the historic background – and by that I mean reading everything I can get my hands on, immersing myself in that time period. Then, the ideas come automatically, the historic events fuel and shape the story.

The two books about the Schönau family were also inspired by my own family history. I grew up with the many life stories I heard from grandparents, my great-aunt and others, most of them tragic, and they not only made me realize how lucky I am for my sheltered life but also inspired me to weave some of them into this two-part novel about a German family.

I love history too – it was studying texts from the past that made me realise that, in simple terms, the people of the past were real, and living, and ‘just like us’ – once I grasped that, I found history deeply absorbing. But as individuals we also have a past.

So what were your earliest influences? What did you read as a child?

My mother read to me for hours before I could read myself, authors like Astrid Lindgren and some of the most popular authors of German children’s books. My English grandmother gave me Enid Blyton books as soon as I could read, and I devoured them. Of course I then wanted to go to boarding school and solve mysteries …

Actually I read so much that my parents were on a perpetual book hunt for me. They asked friends, relatives and neighbours if they had children’s books I could borrow. They scoured flea markets, my mother walked to the library bus with me when it was in town and of course I had a long wish list that consisted exclusively of books. I remained faithful to Enid Blyton for most of my earlier childhood. When I was eleven, I saw “Gone with the Wind” on television and wanted to read that book quite urgently. That started my historical fiction infatuation. It consisted mainly of books about American history, with a bit of Tolstoi and other Russians sprinkled in. In my later teens I discovered Dickens, Poe and the marvellous Goethe. Yes, I was a nerdy child, I admit it.

I wanted to go to boarding school and solve mysteries too! Though I was less interested in studying…

What are you working on at the moment?

I’m researching Prussia during the Napoleonic era for the third book in my series about a village in Prussia (in German) and I’m currently translating the second book about the Schönau family into English. This will accompany the family from 1934 to 1957 – through dictatorship, war and a divided Germany.

Speaking of the Schönau family, I know that this week, you’ve just released your first English translation of the first book of the two, A Citizen of All Times which I highly recommend for an insightful, absorbing read, and so what can we look forward to in the future from you?

In German, I want to write some more books for my Prussian series – it covers a fictional village near Berlin throughout the most eventful periods of Prussia between 1685 and 1945.

I also have plans to write a novel or series about Germans moving to the United States, so I’m gathering ideas for that.

As for English versions: After the translation of the second book about the Schönau family, I might translate my trilogy about an American family between 1832 and 1932 at some point.

Like most authors, you’re also an avid reader, who are your favourite authors?

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe – a masterful way with words and a fascinating character in itself.

Charles Dickens – he created the most unique characters and had a talent to combine humour and tragedy in his very own way.

Erich Maria Remarque – such elegant prose. Never a word too much, wonderful mastery of language and one of the most important chroniclers of the 20th century in Germany.

Edgar Allan Poe – a dark mind, which he put to thrilling literary use.

And what do you do when you’re not reading?

Hiking through the forests and being enslaved by my two cats. Reading. Doing puzzles while listening to historical or true crime documentaries. Doing volunteer work for our local castle.

Lol I’m glad I’m not the only cat-servant around! Do you have a writing process as such, and if so, what is it?

I research the history first and see what story ideas result from that. Then I mull these ideas over – preferably while hiking – until I have a beginning and a broad idea of where the story goes. I start writing and see where it takes me. I rarely develop characters thoroughly in advance because I noticed that they develop on their own while I write. I see where they take me and usually it makes sense to follow that path.

Then I see how the story develops and plot step by step – preferably while hiking even more.

I have no set writing times, I noticed it doesn’t work if I force myself to write. So I write when I feel like it (which fortunately is often).

What single piece of advice do you wish someone had given you 15 years ago?

Most of the time things turn out much better than you fear.

That’s very true. And fear can stop us from achieving so much.

Coming back to books, do you regularly reread certain books?

I read Goethe’s Faust about once every two years. Then, there are some novels that touched or / and impressed me for various reasons, so I occasionally read them again. Several of them from the authors I mentioned above as my favourite ones but also many others.

And lastly, where can readers find you?

I’m not very active on social media, but I do occasionally post on Instagram: www.instagram.com/heike_wolf_historischeromane

My own website is mainly in German (but these days it’s so easy to have websites translated right in the browser) and contains information about my books and articles relating to some of the historic topics I covered in my books: www.menschenlebengeschichte.com

Thank you so much, Heike, it’s been fascinating talking with you, and I wish you great success with all your ventures.

Brief bio of Heike Wolf:

Heike Wolf studied to be a lawyer, but she has been fascinated by books and writing ever since she can remember. She started to write fiction as soon as she knew how to write at all (the quality of her works has improved by then). The passion for history came a few years later and so the ground was set for writing historic fiction after she had first focused on non-fiction books for expats to Germany (“Coming to and Living in Germany”, “Cross-cultural musings about Germany”).

Her family history extends across many countries, and she has also lived in various countries herself, so it’s not surprising that her family history and the countries she loves play a role in many of her books. Her two books about the German family Schönau were in large parts inspired by her great-aunt’s life. As Heike Wolf, who grew up with an English mother and a German father, also does literary translations, she translated the first Schönau book into English and is currently working on the translation of the second.

Her novels are characterized by careful research and the skillful interweaving of the historical background with the lives of her characters ­– “people live history”.

Carry on reading below to find out a bit more about Heike’s new book A Citizen of All Times out this week in English:

The story of a German family in the most turbulent time of the last century.

Volume 1:

While Charlotte plans her eightieth birthday and follows the demonstrations and upheavals in the East Germany, she thinks back to her childhood and youth in Leipzig, where she was born in 1909 and grew up with two siblings. Their sheltered childhood is shaken by World War I, revolution and a completely changed world. During the turbulent years of the Weimar Republic, in a politically unstable time, the three Schönau children take their first steps into adult life. While Charlotte’s sister Dorchen enjoys the liberal cultural life in Berlin, her brother Heinrich is drawn to the wrong circles. Charlotte herself experiences the versatility of being a university student and suffers the first painful loss of her life.

In the second volume, the darkest period of German history has descended upon the country. Each of the Schönau siblings has a different way of getting through the Nazi dictatorship and World War II. Dorothea gets to know the ugly face of the new regime, has to make sacrifices and undergo fundamental life changes. Heinrich has found his place and is leaving behind those who have accompanied him. Charlotte focuses on her family and tries to ignore unpleasant truths. The war brings unimaginable losses and forces almost everybody to make difficult decisions. At the end of the war, the family finds itself facing new trials.
Charlotte’s eightieth birthday on November 9, 1989 ends in a way she would never have thought possible.

You can find both eBook and paperback versions here:

Amazon USA

Amazon UK

Amazon Germany

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