writers in Derbyshire

These fragments I have shored against my ruin

/ Caron Allan

I first shared this blog post in 2016. To date, it’s still my best-performing blog post. Not sure if that is because it’s one of my shortest – I am quite a waffler these days.

But I love that line. It’s line 431 from T S Eliot’s The Waste Land. The first time I read the poem, when I got to this line I burst into tears, because it seemed such a beautiful summation, of the poem, of my life, everything. Words do that to me–I’m a very emotional person, I’m glad to say.

I believe that our lives are made up of fragments. We are, in essence, a walking, talking collection of every experience we’ve ever had. This includes what we’ve read. Words.

So often I am out and about–yes, I escape now and again–and I hear something, see something, smell something which provokes a memory of something I’ve read. Most often it is snatches of conversation I overhear, being nosey and a crime writer, which as we all know gives me special dispensation to eavesdrop on others. (‘I ain’t been dropping no eaves, sir, honest.’) Words seem to lead to more words.

I hear someone say, ‘The wonderful thing…’ and mentally I’ve added ‘…about Tiggers is Tiggers are wonderful things.’ (I didn’t promise it was anything erudite!) Or someone may say ‘Wherever I go…’ and I think to myself ‘there’s always Pooh, there’s always Pooh and me.’ (By the way, Winnie the Pooh is not just for kids. Just read the chapter called The Piper At the Gates of Dawn…)

It’s not just A A Milne, though. So often snatches of Shakespeare, Agatha Christie, songs, poems, plays, hymns, prayers, all sorts of words come into my head. I can’t look at spring flowers without thinking ‘A host of golden daffodils’ or ‘April is the cruellest month’. (The Waste Land again!) A tall person becomes ‘thou painted Maypole’. A mouse is a ‘wee sleekit cowrin tim’rous beastie’. (Burns of course, who else?)

If something annoying happens, I hear Miss Marple whisper, ‘Oh dear, how extremely vexing,’ or I hear someone say something stupid, and Mr Bennett’s frustrated, outraged, ‘Until you come back…I shall not hear two words of sense spoken together’ comes to mind. I share his pain. In extremis, ‘I shall be in my library; I’m not to be disturbed.’ (Not unless there’s cake or Midsomer Murders.) Or I might hear Miss Silver’s indulgent, ‘In their own way, men can be quite useful.’

Or if sorrows come in, it’s Matthew Arnold’s painful comment filled with longing, ‘Ah love, let us be true to one another,’ because he believed that one another was all we have. (Dover Beach).

Or…

There’s always another wonderful sketch of words from someone who lived many years before my time. Or a contemporary. Or the next generation. We all use and need words.

And because of this, none of us can ever come to a text, for the first time, or the tenth, ‘cold’ or ‘new’. There is really no neutral approach in the human soul. We bring with us the sum of all our experiences and emotions, our world-view and our beliefs, and those inform what we read, and mercifully sometimes, what we read can inform all those things too.

When I was studying literature ‘back in the day’, I remember The Waste Land was one of our set texts. Critics deplored it, dismissing it as a pastiche, a patchwork quilt of other peoples’ work, revealing only a good memory for quotations. Students shuddered and declared it was one of the worst experiences of their life. But for some of us, there was a sense of ‘wow, I never knew poetry could be like this!’

When I read his words, ‘These fragments I have shored against my ruins’ (line 431), I said to my tutor, I think he is saying that literature, that words, will save us in times of crisis, bolster us when we are at a low ebb. I was told I was wrong, but in spite of that, I still choose to believe this could be one meaning of these, for me, immortal words. These fragments of remembered stories, poems, previous experiences, feelings, of words, I have stored up, internalised, to use as a defence, shored against my ruin, my unhappiness, times of want, misery, sorrow and confusion. Ruin.

For me it is a reminder that many things in life are transient, passing, temporary, but I will always carry within me the sum of what I have read. Just read Shakespeare’s sonnet 18 and tell me I’m wrong. It’s short, it’s sweet, it’s got a cheeky grin at the end. It’s perfect, and all human life is there.

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Some small happy things – people watching again!

/ Caron Allan / 3 Comments

These days it’s quite hard to find something positive in the world. Life is tough. Even 2020 and the onset of covid is enough to fill me with a gentle nostalgia, those seem like fun times compared to right now. But kindness and goodness is not dead and gone, no matter what we read in the media or see on TV. If your mental health is at an all-time low, as many of us are finding, just look around you and you will find small things to make you smile.

Today I saw:

An elderly man ask a young mum struggling with a screaming toddler if she was okay. He wasn’t complaining about the noise. He wasn’t telling her how she should raise her kid. He just asked if she was okay. She said she was, thank you, and told him that her child had just been vaccinated and was crying because of that. But the man’s simple kindness made me happy. Because sometimes we just need someone to ask, right?

And as I was waiting for my other half, a woman–a total stranger–asked me about something I was holding – bird food (as usual!). ‘Is that stuff any good?’ she asked me. ‘Because my sister-in-law bought some for my dad’s garden, and it’s like sawdust. The birds won’t touch it.’

I told her the birds that come to my garden wolf it down like crazy. ‘I’ll get some,’ she said, so I told her where I got mine.

‘It’s a bit pricey, ‘ I warned her.

‘That doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘My dad’s 96, and watching the birds gives him so much pleasure, it’s worth it just to make him happy.’

Aww. Obviously that small encounter warmed my heart too.

As my mum used to say, good things come in threes–when we got back to our car, the rain had started, and everyone was in a rush to leave. A young dad and very small girl cute in her school uniform, arrived to get into the car next to ours, and the dad said to the little one, ‘We’ve got to get home quick, I’ve left the washing out!’

I smiled. He wasn’t too worried, the child wasn’t being hurried or pushed along, they were just taking life in their stride, calm, relaxed, happy. As I said, small things, nothing earth-shattering, but the mundane minutiae of everyday life. That’s what makes me smile.

Actually there were more than three–the cafe owner where we went stayed back a few more minutes after closing to make a cup of tea for a late customer, an elderly woman. The staff in the shops I visited were cheerful and friendly.

So that was a good day. I had a lovely chatty  lunch with my family, the sun shone (briefly) and I saw at first hand some simple things that showed me that there are good people in the world, and not everything is horrible. And I thought I would tell you.

Next week, I promise, it will be more about writing genre fiction.

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First, create your setting

/ Caron Allan / 2 Comments
An Art Deco style house, rather like a ship, I think

When writing any fictional work, the author has to create a setting. Even if all the action takes place in one room, the author needs to make the room appear real and convincing. And usually, a setting is much larger than one single room, whether it is a grand country house, a quaint village, a ship in the middle of the ocean or a space station located in a distant nebula. The physical space ascribed to a story is essential for the characters to exist: without a setting, the story just wouldn’t come alive in the imagination of the reader.

But as authors, we have a dilemma: is it better to use a fictional setting, or to set a story in a ‘real’ place?

Some authors love to set their works in a real place. In times past, when the average person didn’t travel afield very far, books set in foreign lands were exotic and almost as exciting as taking a trip yourself. The author could conjure the sights and smells, slipping in cultural references such as language, mannerisms, behaviours, and traditions, then adding layer upon layer of experience for the reader by including descriptions of places and geographical features they might never see. You could find yourself in a desert, or on a mountain-top, at the bottom of the sea with Jules Verne or travelling by mule to an isolated archeological dig in an Agatha Christie novel.

Not all country gardens include a summer house or gazebo

For the author, there are advantages to using a real location for a book. To begin with, it makes the surroundings easier to describe, if you only have to look out of your door, or bring up images on the Internet. It’s easier to keep track of your characters, especially in a crime story where you have to create alibis and where there is a need to account for a character’s movements or whereabouts at any given time. And because the author is describing a real place, it’s easier for them to keep their details accurate, and therefore they seem all the more convincing, giving the reader a sense of being in a ‘real’ place.

But there are disadvantages to this too.

To begin with, the real geography or setting might not work with your story, and if you include things that don’t exist, your readers will not be happy. And trust me, they will notice! Equally, real towns or country houses are vulnerable to change—once again change might mean that your story no longer works, or is less convincing, or just doesn’t interest the reader as much.

Another problem is the rise of Literary Tourism, or as I call it, the ‘Morse’ effect—this is where readers love a setting so much they want to go there and see it for themselves, and sometimes do this is large numbers, like tourists visiting the city of Oxford to follow in the steps of Colin Dexter’s creation, Inspector Morse. As we all know, a little tourism is a good thing—it boosts local economy and provides jobs, not to mention selling books or TV shows and making everyone happy. But a lot of tourism can breed resentment in a locality if it causes inconvenience, or even environmental damage. Visitors may throng about a particular spot that features in a book and this can be unacceptable for a number of reasons. And what if the author is highly critical or disparaging about a particular real place? I don’t see that book, or its enthusiasts being welcomed with open arms.

Be careful when featuring real inhabitants in fiction

For me, the setting is a useful, nice-to-have but not essential part of my books. The main emphasis is on character and events. So do forgive me if my settings a sometimes a bit ‘samey’. In this way, I sometimes build my fictional country house as an amalgamation of all the other, real-life country houses I’ve visited, not faithful at all to one specific building.

I personally prefer this ‘Midsomer Murders’ approach—have a fictional area within a real part of the country. This is the glorious middle ground, where you loosely build your story on what is actually there, but do the typical author thing of ‘changing the names to protect, etc, etc’. This way you can create the sense of a real place with all the quirks and characteristics of that place, but which is as flexible as the author needs it to be. You can incorporate any number of variations to fit your future works as well as the one you have on the go at the moment. And best of all—no one will ever be able to say, ‘In chapter four, you have the car park at the end of the road by the pier, but in fact it’s actually at the opposite end of the town.’

All you need to do is remember where all the features of your fictional town are. I suggest drawing a map. Otherwise, the same reader will be able to say, ‘In chapter four, the car park is at the end of the road by the pier, but in chapter seven, you’ve put it at the other end of the town.’ And by the time you get to this stage, it probably would have been easier to use a real place, after all.

I definitely need to set a book in Norway–no doubt I’ll have to travel there for research purposes. Sigh. Life’s tough.

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Peril in Persia by Judith Cranswick: the new Aunt Jessica adventure lands tomorrow!

/ Caron Allan

This week I am delighted to talk to Judith Cranswick about her brand new book, Peril in Persia, which comes out on Monday 31st January. This will be the third book in the cosy mystery series Aunt Jessica adventures. For those of you who are new to Judith’s series, Aunt Judith is a historian and noted lecturer on art and cultural history who is in great demand on tourist trips to add that extra special something to the tour. She brings along her favourite nephew, Harry, and the pair of them always seem to get into scrapes and fall amongst ne’er-do-wells.

Judith also has another notable series, the Fiona Mason mysteries which are similar to the Aunt Jessica books in that Fiona Mason is a tour guide who accompanies groups on their trips with Super sun Holidays. Fiona has solved her own large share of mysterious murders and dastardly deeds. There are also a number of stand-alone novels, short story collections and even creative writing prompts to help authors to harness inspiration and put pen to paper.

About Peril in Persia: Aunt Jessica mysteries book 3

A forty-year-old conspiracy leads to murder and more lives are threatened.
When a fellow passenger is killed on the first day of their tour of Iran, Harry believes it was no accident. But who would want him dead and why? The murdered man was clearly no tourist so why was he on the tour? What is the link with the hotel manager? The questions keep coming. Harry becomes suspicious of several of his fellow passengers who he is convinced are not what they claim to be. He will need Aunt Jessica’s steadying hand to stop him rushing into danger to solve the mystery.
Revel in the magnificent setting as you take a tour of ancient Persia, exploring the glories of Darius the Great’s magnificent palace at Persepolis, the mud-brick desert cities from the 13th century, the palaces and gardens, to the peak of architectural splendour in Shah Abbas 17th century capital of Isfahan. But be prepared for treachery and deceit as the past demands revenge.
A whodunit with plenty of unexpected twists with a touch of humour. It will keep you guessing until the end.
What readers are saying: –

‘The thing I love about Judith Cranswick’s books is that you are transported to another world. The writing is so vivid, you can see the magnificent sights – the rich colours of the mosques, the sparkle of the palaces – hear the throng of the busy marketplaces and smell the perfumes of the lush Persian gardens.‘

‘Well researched. I never realised that Iran had such a rich history and the stories associated with the last Shah’s family were fascinating.’

‘Another unputdownable gem in a great series.‘

Click here to buy Peril in Persia: Aunt Jessica mysteries book 3

Like her protagonists, Judith also gives talks on a wide range of topics when she is on-board ship, helping holidaymakers to get more out of their trip.

Judith was kind enough to answer a few questions for me this week when I nabbed her in a dark corner, stole her passport and wouldn’t let her leave. (Not really.)

Caron: Many of your books are set on a holiday tour, are they all based on trips you’ve made personally?

Judith: All my travel mysteries are based on holidays I’ve taken. That is always my starting point. The trip comes first. The itinerary in the book is the same one I followed. Many of the things that happen on our journey end up in the novel. For example, I slipped down the last couple of stairs and twisted my ankle on the way to the Rhine Valley. I was able to use that idea in ‘Blood in the Wine’ to further the plot. Similarly, when we were in the Galapagos, we saw a sea lion with a tuna fish in its jaws batting it from side to side. I remember thinking, ‘What if that were a human arm?’ It was one of the things that inspired ‘A Death too Far’. Places can also give rise to ideas. The Hilton Hotel in Berlin has an impressive atrium which inspired the idea of hoisting someone over the balcony on the third floor for ‘Blood Hits the Wall’.

Caron: Have you ever had any odd encounters on your tours that you’ve thought would be perfect for a book, or perhaps even too unbelievable even for a novel?

Judith: After our tiger watching holiday in India, I came back with a complete plot. Our party included a successful Australian businesswoman who was partially deaf. She had paid for her young assistant to come with her. They were both drinking gin at breakfast which didn’t go down too well with everyone else. To make matters worse, the two fell out bigtime, so much so that one night the assistant went out of the compound where we were staying in the middle of the tiger reserve. A tiger had killed a man from one of the villages in the reserve only the week before and the guards were prohibited from going out once the gates were shut. In the end, one of the passengers went out on foot to bring her back. Our guide then had no choice but to go after him in a jeep to help find her. All three managed to get back safely, but the friction that followed would have made an excellent plot. Bar an actual murder, I had all the material – characters, subplots and fantastic wildlife and scenery – for ‘Tiger, Tiger’ another psychological suspense. Sadly, I’ve never had time to write it.

Caron: When is your next Fiona Mason book coming out? Any hints as to location? 

Judith: The next Fiona Mason Mystery will be set in Paris. I’d like to think that it will be ready by the end of the year, but I have a lecture cruise coming up at the end of March so I shall be busy putting together my presentations for the Canary Islands until after Easter. We also have a holiday planned for October when we’ll be doing a Nile Cruise. I’m hoping that will give me enough ideas for the next Aunt Jessica and Harry Mystery.

Caron: Are your characters based on people you meet on your travels? What about your sleuths? Are you the real Aunt Jessica or Fiona Mason?

Judith: My characters are always my own creations. Like many writers they take on a life of their own even doing things that surprise me. I’ve had a couple who point-blank refused to be the murderer and Peter Montgomery-Jones, who I only ever intended to be a minor character in the first Fiona novel ‘Blood on the Bulb Fields’, insisted not only on a bigger role but on coming back in all the later books in the series. It makes the novels considerably harder to plot. Not only do I have to find an additional terrorist/political mission for him to be involved in, but also tie it together with Fiona’s investigation at the end of the novel.

Although the idea of Aunt Jessica came from the Islamic specialist who came with us on our trips to Morocco and Persia, Jessica is nothing like Diana though they both work in the British Museum.

My characters may be totally from my imagination, but my locations are not. I need to picture them exactly. Hotels, flats or kitchens might not be in the places I say they are, but they are real. I had to make a special trip into Swindon to find a café in the right part of town, even sit in the same seat at a table in the window as my protagonist, before I could write the scene.

Many thanks to Judith for those wonderful insights.

You can find Judith on the following social media – do follow her for updates and other exciting stuff!

Website: www.judithnew.cranswick.org.uk

Facebook – author page: Judith Cranswick – crime writer

Twitter: @CranswickJudith

Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/author/show/ 7211080.Judith_Cranswick

My review:

Join Jessica and her nephew Harry on a new journey to discover art and cultural history in their latest adventure, Peril in Persia.

Jessica has been invited to host a series of lectures on an exclusive tour of Iran, presenting the holidaymakers with insight into the wonderful landscape of what is a trip of a lifetime for most. For some it’s the last trip they will make.

It doesn’t take long for Jessica and Harry’s seasoned eyes to work out that some members of the group have got something to hide, and still others are clearly not as unfamiliar with the area as they claimed. For a group of strangers, some of them certainly seem to know a lot about one another, too! As the group travels from site of interest to site of interest, soon the masks begin to slip and old animosities surface, with devastating consequences.

Fans of traditional cosy mysteries are in for a treat with book 3 in this series, as the clues begin to mount up and Jessica and Harry begin to figure out what’s really going on.

As always in Judith Cranswick’s books, the setting is a huge part of the enjoyment of the mystery, lending its own unique features as a backdrop to murder and intrigue. Like the Fiona Mason mysteries, the Aunt Jessica and Harry mysteries are perfect for both he armchair tourist and the armchair sleuth. Highly enjoyable!

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An apology. And (finally) The Killer Speaks

/ Caron Allan

Since this whole covid thing hit, I’ve noticed I’ve become quite–erm–well, doolally is what my mother would have called it. I’ve gone a bit forgetful and dopey. And the most recent example of this is when, two weeks ago, I posted a blog entitled ‘More killer words’, and I actually said:

‘I mentioned a while ago (I’ve already forgotten when it was…) that one of the best parts of a murder mystery is when the killer is ‘on-stage’ and speaks.’

Well it’s taken me until last weekend to figure out where I said that, and it was in my subscriber newsletter – so no, I never did start that conversation here on my blog. On the blog we had the sequel but not the prequel, if you see what I mean. Sorry about that! So now, without further ado, I bring you the original (horribly long, feel free to completely ignore it) The Killer Speaks:

You know how, at the end of a murder mystery, they assemble all the suspects, and the police, and the investigator—whether an official officer of the law or an amateur sleuth, or even a paid private eye—tells everyone how the crime was done? I love that bit.

On the one hand, it bugs me that it’s done at all in fiction, because clearly, in real life the police don’t bring all the suspects to Great Aunt Madge’s house and, when everyone is sitting comfortably, begin to recount the case from the very beginning, filling in each step with a bit of evidence or some superhuman deductive reasoning. And usually I hate it when things in books aren’t done ‘right’.

But I love that big reveal, and the complacency of the investigator, having everyone there to listen to his/her theories. I love the ego of it, the pomp, the ‘you will all listen to me’ arrogance, and so even though I strive to make my own stories more or less believable, I sometimes just give in and go with that wonderful sense of occasion.

I’m not an expert on the Golden Age of murder mystery writing, but I am very familiar with some of the well-known authors of that time, notably Agatha Christie and Patricia Wentworth, and I have read quite a bit by some of their contemporaries: Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy L Sayers, Margery Allingham, Georgette Heyer. And I’m pretty sure it was this bunch who created the concept of this kind of finale. Or perhaps if we go a little further back, we will find Sherlock Holmes setting this up as the ultimate in wrap-ups, or Wilkie Collins’s Sergeant Cuff. I’m not clear where it began. I just know I love it.

We so often read of Poirot standing in front of a group of rather irritable, seated suspects whilst he expounds, his manner a cross between hectoring and lecturing. Miss Marple, by dint of her age, is usually seated, sometimes knitting, and has a far more hesitant, apologetic style, and is so self-deprecating. Both Poirot and Marple suffer from moral outrage: a murder is an affront and will not be tolerated mainly on the grounds of moral integrity rather than the unbiased basis of the law.

I enjoy ‘listening’ as they bring their case. But then comes the point I love the most.

The killer speaks.

Because this is the reason we hang onto Poirot’s thoughts for so long. We want to hear (read, I mean really) the killer say in her or his own words, WHY they did it. Yes, we do need to know how. And where, and with what weapon, we want to know about motives and alibis, but oh so often, the abiding desire in us is to know WHY. Why did they do such a terrible, irremediable thing?

We are often told that anyone could kill given the right circumstances and sufficient motive. Many of us doubtless would say, ‘No, I would never, could never kill. I can’t even bring myself to kill a woodlouse or a spider.’

I have asked myself if I could kill. I have killed bugs and beasties, generally by accident or out of sheer clumsiness. But I’ve never—as far as I’m aware—killed anything bigger than a bee. Unless you count calling the rat man. That I suppose is more like being an accessory, or conspiring to kill… From the rat’s point of view, they’d probably say I was a murderer. To me it’s different. I suppose murderers always say that.

But if it was a case of happening upon a person who was deliberately harming someone else, and I saw a way to stop it, what would I do? I’d like to think I’d never turn my back on someone in desperate need. But how far would I go?

So I think that’s why we—all of us avid crime fiction fans—enjoy getting to the pinnacle of a mystery, following the clues, deducing and pondering, and hanging onto every word to find out ‘the who’ and ‘the why’ behind the whole thing. As the killer shifts in his or her seat, the spotlight shifts to them, and this is their big moment. The chance to explain their WHY. We hold our breath, not daring to make a sound in case we miss a word. They lean forward, look us in the eye, they clear their throat, and they speak…

Which book finale have you read which gave you the biggest buzz? Do you prefer your killer to go down denying and fighting, or do you prefer your books to end with a kind of proud and well-bred admission of the truth?

Get in touch! Let me know what you think!

In the meantime, in case you haven’t read it–you won’t need to now you know who the killer is–you can click here to go to one of my own ‘big moments’ when the killer speaks. This is taken from my novel The Last Perfect Summer of Richard Dawlish: Dottie Manderson mysteries book 4. And it absolutely does contain a ton of SPOILERS.

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More Killer words

/ Caron Allan

I mentioned a while ago (I’ve already forgotten when it was…) that one of the best parts of a murder mystery is when the killer is ‘on-stage’ and speaks. It’s the highlight of the story for me–their moment of crowing glory or abject defeat. This is the moment when we the audience have already heard the detective’s wild accusations or seen their insurmountable proof. Then, turning to the perpetrator, the audience holds their collective breath. And then the killer speaks…

After The Funeral by Agatha Christie is one of my top ten of her books. I just love the way, right from the start, the reader is deceived. (I’ve tried to do this without spoilers, but there’s only so much I can do and still make my point!)

Here is an extract of the denouement. Poirot has been outlining his case. Then the killer remarks:

‘No, one doesn’t bother to look at a mere companion-help… A drudge, a domestic drudge! Almost a servant. but go on, M Poirot. Go on with this fantastic piece of nonsense!’

So Poirot does go on.. and it’s too late now for the killer to save him/herself. I love it when the killer challenges the detective in a rather snarky way–we know they are about to get their comeuppance. Of course Poirot has more up his sleeve. When it comes, it is, of course, irrefutable. The murderer realises they’ve given themselves away irretrievably, but if they can’t have their way, then nothing else much matters:

‘You don’t know how boring it is to listening to somebody going on about the same things, hour after hour, day after day… Pretending to be interested… And nothing to look forward to…’

All too often, the murderer has a side-kick who is apt to be thrown under the bus at the final moment, for their ineptitude. Side-kicks are notorious for saying the wrong thing to the detective in the final showdown:

‘…darling, it’s not true. You could never kill anyone, I know you couldn’t…it’s that horrible girl you married. She’s been telling lies about you….’ said the side-kick in Christie’s A Caribbean Mystery, only for the villain to turn on them and snarl:

‘For God’s sake, you damned bitch… shut up, can’t you? D’you want to get me hanged? Shut up, I tell you. Shut that big, ugly mouth of yours.’

Life’s tough for a side-kick. The murderer will always be centre-stage, their vanity demands it.

What about the ending of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd – a controversial book in its day, one of my favourites, and still hugely popular. Here, after revealing the murderer, Poirot says to him/her:

‘It would be most unwise on your part to attempt to silence me as you silenced M. Ackroyd. That kind of business does not succeed against Hercule Poirot, you understand.’

To which the murderer responds, with a characteristic touch of vanity:

‘My dear Poirot,’ I said, smiling a little, ‘whatever else I may be, I am not a fool.’

It is important for him/her to be appreciated and treated with respect, even though they are a cold-blooded killer. At least for the reader, justice is served–or about to be–whilst for the killer, their dignity is more important than their life.

The best ‘killer speaks’ moment is when the murderer is unable to maintain their aplomb and with terrifying and self-condemning rage, they launch themselves at the detective–for whom this is usually all in a day’s work–and the game is most definitely, and fatally, up. This is that moment in Evil Under The Sun – my number one Agatha Christie novel:

‘Poirot said: ‘You will be interested to hear that both you and (……) were easily recognised and picked out by the Surrey police… They identified you both…’

(…..) had risen. His handsome face was transformed, suffused with blood, blind with rage. It was the face of a killer–of a tiger. He yelled:

‘You damned interfering murdering lousy little worm!’

He hurled himself forward, his fingers stretching and curling, his voice raving curses, as he fastened his fingers around Hercule Poirot’s throat…’

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a satisfying conclusion! The murderer must have his or her moment in the spotlight, to explain their motivation. It’s all very well to know how they did something, and of course, vital to know who committed the crime, but if you don’t know why – it’s one of those puzzles that can never be put to rest.

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Happy New Year! Let’s party like it’s… (insert decade of choice here)

/ Caron Allan / 5 Comments

There’s one thing we can say for sure about the changing taste of different decades. We might do it differently but we still do it. Party, I’m talking about, you smutty people. We humans have always loved a celebration. And no matter what we’re celebrating, that will definitely include music, and if at all possible we can all ‘get down and get with it’.

Here are a few playlist recommendations, depending on your era of choice.

If you fancy partying like it’s the 1740s, check out these bad boys, guaranteed to get you in the party mood as New Year comes around:

CPE Bach’s Harpsichord Concerto in A Major (There are not enough harpsichord concertos if you ask me.)

Thomas Arne’s Rule Britannia. I’ll admit this is not for everyone, especially if you’ve suffered under our oppressive yoke. Sorry about that. Blokes with a superiority complex, boats, flags and guns, what can you do? But it is a banging tune.

GF Handel’s Hercules Oratorio (no, I don’t know it either…)

CPE Bach’s Harpsichord Concertos in E and D minor, and in E major. I feel like CPE has got himself stuck in a rut here, but again, if you’re good at something, maybe it’s a good idea to stick with it.

And finally, Vitali’s Chaconne in G minor – a great end to a fabulous evening.

Or say you’re in the mood for something a little more modern, you could boogie down with my amateur sleuth Dottie Manderson and the best of them to these fabulous tunes from the 1930s:

My absolute favourite from the 1930s:

Midnight, The Stars and You. Such a romantic title, and romantic concept. What more does anyone need than those three things? This was brought to us by the Ray Nobel orchestra, featuring Al Bowlly (of course) on vocals. It was famously used in The Shining, and is the title of my next-but-one Dottie Manderson mystery, book 8 which should hopefully appear either at the end of 2022 or the middle of 2023.

Let’s not forget also, other 1930s crowd-pleasers such as Stormy Weather (another wonderful and evergreen song) by Leo Reissman and his orchestra and with Ethel Waters singing .

Then you could move on to Night and Day, a Cole Porter song from 1933, I love the Ella Fitzgerald version.

Or you might like another one by Al Bowlly – how about The Very Thought of You. another romantic one for close-up smooching in dim lighting. Ah!!

And you could round the evening off with a rousing chorus of one of the follwoing:

Judy Garland – Somewhere Over The Rainbow

Cab Calloway – Minnie the Moocher (not as good as his late-life version as per The Blues Brothers, in my opinion.)

Artie Shaw – Begin the Beguine – another perennial favourite, I absolutely love this one. Or if you want a different approach to this classic, you could try the really wonderful Louis Armstrong version…

And finally…

These Foolish Things – the Benny Goodman/Teddy Wilson version with Billie Holiday.

Not quite right for your bash? How about something from the 1960s? Get your beehive hair-dos and drainpipes ready…

Now you can really have some variety – try putting together a list featuring some of these great 60s tunes:

Daydream Believer – The Monkees

Concrete and Clay – Unit 4 + 2

Always Something There To Remind Me – Sandie Shore

Natural Born Bugie – Humble Pie

Nights in White Satin – Moody Blues

I Only Want To Be With You – Dusty Springfield

Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow – The Shirelles

Yeh Yeh – Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames

Do You Love Me – the Tremeloes

Maybe that’s a bit too up-to-the-minute for you and you want something a bit classier? How about some great dance music from the Regency era? This is the era that invented line-dancing, albeit somewhat more stately than we have now:

Let’s open with the amazing Beethoven piece for piano, Für Elise. That’ll really get ’em all out on the dancefloor.

Then next, maybe we’ll shake things up a bit with a singalong, the opera Adelina by Generali and Rossi

Or maybe an excerpt from an opera by Beethoven – he was The Man in the early 1810s, with Schubert close behind. This might be the perfect moment to play a bit from Symphony number 8 in F major. Let’s all hum along with the chorus…

For a bit of slow dancing with your beloved, you can’t beat Schubert’s String Quartet in C major.

Due to the rather lengthy nature of this kind of music, we’ll leave it there, closing the evening’s entertainment with Ferdinand Ries’s bestselling top-twenty hit, Concerto for Two Horns. (Admit it, you were missing the concertos, weren’t you?)

One thing is for sure, since time immemorial, humans have loved to come together to celebrate something–anything–and that has included music, dancing, big frocks, bigger hair and quite possibly alcohol.

Happy New Year! May 2022 be everything you long for. Just go easy on the resolutions.

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Hold very tight please, it’s all change once more

/ Caron Allan / 2 Comments
The latest version – surely this can’t upset anyone? (Answers on a post card…)

I don’t like to change my book covers too often. As a reader and book collector, I understand how frustrating and disappointing it can be to have a nice little row of matching books and then, just before you get a full set, ‘someone’ decides to change the covers.

I changed my Dottie Manderson covers about a year ago.

The original Night and Day cover was this one, six years ago when the book was first published:

Remember this one? My first love.

I still love it, but people complained it looked too much like a romance and nothing like a mystery. So eventually, I changed it.

I tried this one:

And this one:

This one:

And finally settled on this one, which has to be my favourite so far.

But when you’re a self-published or Indie author, you have to make business decisions based on cold hard facts and not (as I tend to) on gut instinct or warm fuzzy feelings. So when Amazon announced that following their new policy implementation, they would not now allow me to advertise my book with this cover (the one above) due to the depiction of ‘excessive gore’, I swallowed my pride and my emotional attachment to ‘my baby’ and went off to sulk cry create a new cover. Because you’ve got to advertise, right? How else will readers discover my books?

So sorry, sorry, sorry, but I’ve had to change my covers yet again.

But it’s quite hard to think of a cover image that suits the genre but doesn’t depict blood splatters, weapons, women in the middle of a scream, cadavers, all that kind of thing. I’ve seen loads of covers lately which show a building. that seems to be a new trend, and certainly it’s a safe way to go. In addition, you need an image that looks good as in black and white as it does in colour, is clear and easy for the eye to interpret in a tiny thumbnail size. It’s hard to find the perfect image.

I brooded over images of old-fashioned street lamps dimly lighting a patch of pavement.

I browsed silhouette after silhouette of ‘vintage women’ images. Most of them were either Edwardian era or 1920s flappers. So I freely confess I ran out of ideas.

Then, I thought, ooh what about the chap Dottie finds at the beginning? He was wearing evening dress…

So the new cover idea was born as soon as I set my eyes on this:

Hopefully it’s simple, easy to understand, eye-catching and also makes readers think, if not of the 1930s, then at least ‘not now’. And if not exactly exuding mystery, then hopefully their first thought won’t be, ‘ooh I can’t wait to read this sci-fi or this romance’. In any case, I can’t possibly offend anyone with this, can I? There’s no gore whatsoever, and I’m hoping this cover will live for a while before needing to be updated.

Now I’ve just got to change all my advertising material and social media stuff. This could take a while!

Image by Tani T at Shutterstock: https://www.shutterstock.com/g/tanitk

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Creating Winter’s Child by Jenny S Burke

/ Caron Allan

Jenny S Burke and I have been talking about books and writing for several years, and I wanted to share with you this very creative lady’s latest blog post in which she talks about what went into the making of her children’s book Winter’s Child.

Over to Jenny:

‘Once upon a time, there was a fierce winter. Snow drifts towered above me like white storm waves . . . cold, soft mountains I could tunnel into or slide down.

I was a young child when my family drove from the east coast to northern North Dakota. We gathered with relatives at my grandfather’s farm for Christmas.

There were no kids near my age, so I explored this new world on my own. “Winter’s Child”, my new book, has roots in this experience. 


          “She played in deep snowdrifts as tall as her head,
            And flew down the hills on her small wooden sled.
           She built snow castles with icicle towers.
        She played all alone for hours and hours.”

We built an enormous igloo from blocks of packed snow. A cold snow bench wrapped around the inner wall; snow sconces held candles. I “helped”.

​A dozen relatives crowded close on the circular bench while a blanket covered the entrance. Candlelight added flickering shadows.

​Within this primitive cave, I felt connected to generations of family and to our world. 

The sea called to me. I grew up and moved to the south to become a marine biologist. But I missed the snow.

One day, I folded a piece of paper and cut out a fanciful snowflake with leaping dolphins. A story grew in my mind.  

I wrote the fairy tale but needed more fantasy flakes to complete the book.  

Years later, I had designed and drawn many pen-and-ink flakes.

Now I realized that this story needed to be in rhyme,
like an ancient tale shared by firelight.

I soon learned that if one line
​can’t properly rhyme with the next line,
you need to start over with a whole new stanza. Yay.

Finally, the long story-poem was finished! I field-tested “Winter’s Child” with children and adults and adjusted a few pages.

What size should the book be?

7.5 inch wide X 9.25 inch high allows for generous margins, with room for illustration and text on each page.
​The 14 point font is easy on the eyes.

Next, the illustrations! A chance to experiment and gnash my teeth in frustration.

The fanciful flakes looked lost on a page;
they needed frames to hold them.
I drew boxes, printed the book,
and studied the empty frame above each poem.

What would capture the essence?
I wanted stylized pix with a feel of
stained glass windows.

I pencil-sketched a picture in each framed box
​and began to draw, but . . .
How do you draw the Wind?

​How do you draw a T. rex cloud ​that’s shifting apart?

I removed cloud limbs, made marshmallow teeth, and made the cloud more fluffy in humorous contrast to the dangerous, sharp-edged predator.   

I drew simple flakes for background snow.
Now the poem and pix were finished.
Even better: the very last word of the poem-story is . . . “end”! 🙂

​At last, the cover! Mariah and Wind are playing amongst the bare trees.
One ancient tree wraps around the spine, connecting the covers.

“Winter’s Child” is an upbeat, original fairytale
​in rhyming verse with fanciful illustrations.

It’s a story of the power of friendships,
which truly do change the world.
I hope you enjoy this book as much as it challenged me
​to properly complete my “once upon a time.”    

Thanks to all who helped. Thanks for stopping by!

About Jenny S Burke:

J. S. Burke is an author, artist, and scientist. She’s worked as a marine biologist,
 studying creatures of the dark abyss and diving on coral reefs.
 Her stories blend imagination with real science and author experiences.
 She lives with her family, rescue companions, and dragons! 

 The award-winning Dragon Dreamer series grew from her years at sea,
 a fascination with the alien, intelligent octopuses, and a love of dragons.

Burke has worked as manager of a marine research program and has five published marine research papers. She has degrees in Math, Science,
Marine Science, and Education. Burke has been certified to teach High School Math, H.S. Science, Middle Grades (all subjects), and Gifted students. 

You can contact Jenny at: http://www.jennysburke.com/blog/creating-winters-child

And to read previous interviews with Jenny, click here and here.

Find WINTER’S CHILD here:
PAPERBACK: http://www.authl.it/B09K21BLLX?d
KINDLE: http://www.authl.it/B09KZZX9TQ?d

A writer’s guide to naming characters

/ Caron Allan / 4 Comments

“That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet”

William Shakespeare – Romeo and Juliet.

Shakespeare’s suggestion that names are not important is hopelessly wrong for writers. Who hasn’t sat, staring at a blank sheet of paper, agonising over what to call a character? And if it’s your protagonist, that only makes it harder. Without a character, you have no story.

Occasionally a name for a character just comes to me: Meredith Hardew from a book I plan to release next year, A Meeting With Murder: Miss Gascoigne mysteries book 1, and Cressida Barker-Powell from Criss Cross: Friendship can be Murder: Book1 published 2013 (whose name was a deliberate mutation of Parker-Bowles). These are names that sprang fully-formed into my consciousness as I began to write the story. I couldn’t even think of calling any of those people anything else. In fact this whole opening piece came to me in a flash, and I had to run to a stationer’s to buy a notebook to write it down before I forgot it. (Now I just put it into a note app on my phone! Ah technology, I love you so much.)

At forty-six, Meredith Hardew, with her handsome features, trim figure and excellent dress sense, was frequently taken for at least ten years younger than her true age. Not that she was in the habit of seeking out flattery, for she was one of those women who never thinks about herself, what she’s wearing or how she looks. She was far too busy running errands for someone or other.

Coming 2022

But it doesn’t always work out like that. I can spend hours, days even, agonising over the right name for a character. There are times when I have delayed starting a new story because I can’t seem to find the right name for my protagonist.  Though equally, when I am writing a first draft, I sometimes can’t remember the names I’ve already given my characters. I have even written several thousand words with varying numbers of capital XXXXs to denote each character, just to avoid abandoning the story and messing up the ‘flow’. But it can get confusing. In these circumstances I often have to write long explanatory notes to myself of who the person is, as well as the XXXXXXs. There’s usually a Mr XX, a Miss XXX and a Jeffrey X, or a Gladys XXXX, so it gets a bit muddled. But it does help me keep writing.

However, I can’t always trust myself when a name does just spring into my head. Like the time I wanted to call my main character Ben, then I needed to give him a surname. Sherman. Hmm, I thought, Ben Sherman sounds really good. It’s as if those two names were meant to go together somehow. What a great, natural-sounding name for a character, I thought. It sounds just like a real person. Which should have been my clue. So I told my daughter about my new hero Ben Sherman. She rolled her eyes heavenward in what can only be described as her ‘For God’s sake, Mother!’ expression. Turns out there is a real person, a famous designer, with that name. I was right, it did sound just like a real person. Oh well. Back to the book of baby names again.

That lightbulb moment when you realise your character has a famous person’s name.

Names can be absorbed by osmosis from society or culture, and we don’t always know where they’ve come from. I usually check my friends’ names on Facebook or for authors on Amazon to be ‘on the safe side’. I don’t want to use a well-known person’s name especially if my character is not a very nice person! I had also written five chapters of the Miss Gascoigne story before I realised that two of the main characters were named Meredith and Edith. Edith had to become Sheila. You need to keep the names quite dissimilar to avoid confusion, unless that is germane to your plot. Never feature, for example, Jack Peters and a Peter Jackson in the same book. I’ve known it happen, and the confusion accidentally created by the author seriously impacts on the enjoyment of the story! You can’t suspend belief if you spend all your time trying to remember who is who. At least, don’t do that if there is no deliberate intention to confuse the reader.

Names go through trends. So if you’re writing historical fiction, don’t give your character a modern name. If in doubt, turn to a census of the time for ‘in’ names or look to the royalty of the day. Equally if you’re writing modern stuff, don’t give young characters the names of your parents’ generation, few little ones these days or for the past 20 or 30 years have been called Barbara, Sandra, Hazel, Nigel, Richard, etc. They have a slightly ‘previous generation’ sound to them. However, go back a bit further to the grandparents’ generation and you’ll hit all the names that are now so ‘on-trend’: Jack, Alice, Freddy, George, Emily, Henry and so on. I hope in the next generation after this one, my name will be back in again!

When it came to creating character names, Dickens was a master. He used names to ridicule his characters, to reveal societal trends and attitudes, and to denote characteristics or personalities. Think of Gradgrind and M’Choakumchild in Hard Times, you can’t imagine them being good people, or warm and caring. These are hard names for hard people. Or think of Uriah Heep, Mr Cheeryble, Squeers. He also used another technique that is still useful for writers today. He used to take names that were ordinary and just slightly change them, creating something different and yet somehow familiar. Thus Philip became Chilip.

it can take a while to work things out…

That always makes me think of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games heroine, Katniss Everdeen, or of Margaret Attwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale – the woman Offred was the ‘property’ of Fred. Also for fabulous names it is impossible to beat Alistair Reynolds’ Pushing Ice character, Chromis Pasqueflower Bowerbird. So writers, don’t be afraid to play around with names and have fun. Changing one letter or the order of the letters can make a world of difference, and this works especially well with Sci-fi or Fantasy character names. Maybe Isaac can become Istac or Casai, Sophie can be Phosie, Mary can become Maare, John could become Hjon, Dohn, Joon.

In writing fiction, the names of your main characters are essential to the reader’s enjoyment and for creating a convincing world. Just make sure they are not the names of a successful designer.


See, easy!

 

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