Murder She Writes

The winner of reader’s choice from S. J.’s backlist (offered here) is: jocelyn devon!

Jocelyn, please email sj@sjday.net with the title of the book you’d like (from Sylvia, S. J. or Livia).

Thank you!

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I’m playing hooky today.  I’m heading west to Sacramento where I’m hooking up with Allison, Eileen Rendahl, Alyssa Day, Virna DePaul and a few other goils for an afternoon of chauffeured wine tasting in the Sacramento valley.

It’s supposed to rain, pour in fact, but we’re not going to let that stop us from having a gay ol’ time.  I’m really looking forward to an afternoon where I don’t have to be anything to anyone except one of the girls.  No one is going to ask me what’s for dinner.  No one is going to ask me to drive them here or there, or please do this or please do that.  No one is going to ask me to make a decision for them.  I get to do what I want, for me.

 Ah, bliss…

So, I’m going to ask, what do you all do for a girl’s day out?  But I won’t be around to chat until late afternoon, or maybe not until Saturday, but I will respond, and with all the fun deets!  

Happy Friday!

 Karin*

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Tonight I finished watching LIFE, a two-season television show starring Damian Lewis on NBC. It was cancelled, but somehow that seems to happen a lot with some of my favorite shows.

I can tell you why it was cancelled. 1) There was little action for a police drama. 2) It was too different (for a police drama) for network audiences (I suspect if it was on the WB of FOX it wouldn’t have been cancelled.) 3) It was subtle.

The premise of LIFE is simple, but don’t let the simplicity of a good log line fool you into thinking it was a simple show. A cop goes to prison for 12 years for a crime he didn’t commit. When exonerated, he’s given $50 million in restitution–and his job back.

Intrigued? I was, thanks to Toni who clued me into this series a few weeks ago.

When most people think of police drama, they think Law & Order. Hill Street Blues. CSI. They expect highs and lows, gun fights and car chases and clear good guys and bad guys. Viewer expectations in television are as important as reader expectations in genre fiction. LIFE was different, and because it was network television–the big guys–they didn’t quite know how to do different. But it’s not really their fault, it’s (again) viewer expectation: network television + crime drama = action.

What makes LIFE a brilliant show is, in fact, it’s subtly. Dialogue is crucial, but even more important than the dialogue is the actors themselves–how they react to what is laid out before them. How they see it, how they think about it, how they work through the puzzle.

I’d never seen Damian Lewis act before, but he was perfectly cast as Charlie Crews. While most viewers might expect him to turn violent when he confronts the men who framed him, his internal battle is clearly shown in his expression. Not all actors could pull this off. But the writers and creators are as much to credit with this as the actors. When Charlie crosses the line, what would be unacceptable is now acceptable. We are with him, we understand him, even when he doesn’t talk his trauma to death. The subtly of action–and the clues that the still waters run very deep (pardon the cliche)–makes the show a bit too “smart” for the casual viewer.

I’m not saying that television viewers aren’t smart–believe me, I’m a tv addict. I love good television. I have multiple shows going on now–HEROES, FRINGE (which I suspect will be cancelled), L&O SVU, CASTLE, SUPERNATURAL, and my daughters and I are half-way through season 4 of BUFFY. But for a mass audience, there is a certain formula for success. High stakes. Action. Love. Betrayal. Hate. Irony. Puzzles. While LIFE had a crime that was investigated and solved in every episode, it also had an overarching plot that was threaded through every episode. If you didn’t watch it from the beginning, you might be lost.

Consider THE X-FILES (Fox) and SUPERNATURAL (WB) and BUFFY (WB). All three shows have “stand alone” episodes, and their over-arching storyline is easy to understand even if you missed a few. (SUPERNATURAL seasons 4 and 5 went away from that–they are hard to follow if you haven’t been there from at least the beginning of season 4, maybe 3, but they still have the stand-alones.) But . . . they were all on “off” networks. Networks who could survive with smaller audiences–niche audiences.

Ok, going back to the show. All the characters were strong, but LIFE was Charlie Crews. Donald Maass says in FIRE IN FICTION:

“An aura of greatness comes foremost not from who a given character may be, but from the profound impact that character has on others.”

When I think about why Charlie Crews was such a great character, I could focus on the details of the characterization–his love of fruit (he couldn’t eat fresh fruit in prison.) How he would use his siren and authority to pull over his ex-wife’s new husband (she thought he was guilty, divorced him and remarried.) His affinity for Zen philosophy or his odd comments that have us tilted our head quizzically just like his partner, Dani Reese (who represents us, the viewer, the outsider, in so many ways.)

But Charlie wasn’t a great character because of his idiosyncrasies. He wasn’t a great character by the characterization–the combination of writing and acting. He was a great character because of how HE impacted those around him.

A catalyst is: “a person or thing that causes a change.”

Technically, a catalyst is something that causes a change that is in and of itself not affected. But I like this definition from the online Free Dictionary:

“A substance, usually used in small amounts relative to the reactants, that modifies and increases the rate of a reaction without being consumed in the process.”

Putting the chemical relationship aside, consider your hero (in this case Charlie Crews) as a catalyst. To be a true hero, they must increase the action/reaction/stakes but not be consumed–diminished–or destroyed in the process. They must create something better than themselves to be a hero. Solve a crime without becoming a criminal. Save a life without taking another. Save the world without dying themselves.

A true catalyst changes those around them. They become better–bigger–happier–than they were before they met the catalyst. Every person Charlie Crews came in contact with was changed . . . even while Charlie remained the same. The major characters–his partner, his captain, his former partner, his former prison-mates–were of course impacted and became better people because of how Charlie interacted with their lives. But even the minor characters–the crime survivors, for example–were better off because of something that Charlie gave of himself to them–that didn’t change Charlie himself. And I think that’s so important in fiction.

Characters must have an impact on the world around them. They don’t live in a bubble. Every action has a reaction; every choice has consequences.

Toni emailed me last week and said she’d just finished watching the Season Two finale (and the end of the series) and wanted to talk about it with me. Now I know why. It was truly the single best ending to a series I’ve seen. Everything came full-circle. We had the answers, but nothing was laid out on a silver platter. We did have to work for it. And Charlie changed in some ways, but he was never consumed or diminished by the process. He could have been–he should have been–but he was a hero.

This is one series I’ll be watching again, from the beginning.

If you want to talk about LIFE, I’m game! Or if you have another larger than life character from books or television or movies that may be overlooked as a pitch-perfect character, tell us who and why.

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As far as household chores, I don’t mind doing laundry. As a writer, I’m home during the day, I can throw a load in the washer and the dryer and the clothes are ready to return to their rightful owners. I’m not particularly picky about how clothes are done, I’m just way more efficient at getting them all done in one day than anyone else is because I’ve been doing it for a long time.

Since my daughters were small, I’ve made them put away their own clothes. That’s served a couple of purposes. It discouraged the “I tried this on for thirty-five seconds and I don’t want to wear it so I’ll shove it in the dirty clothes” issue many of my friends were having with their young daughters, because I made my daughters put their clothes away and it takes less time if you’ve got less clothes. My friends would complain about the amount of laundry they had to do every day. My philosophy? I wash clothes once a week. That’s it. Sure, there are a few exceptions, especially when work uniforms became part of the teenagers wardrobe, but by then I was already teaching the oldest to wash her own clothes so it didn’t matter. It also showed my daughters that I am not their laundress/maid/personal assistant. It also allowed them to choose how and where they wanted to organize their drawers and closets.

But making them responsible for this also meant I had to give up control on where and how they stashed said clean clothes. Shirts sometimes are wadded up rather than folded. Closets are…well, to be honest, I rarely look in their closets any more. The clothes get put away where they want them, on my time frame (no piles of clean laundry in the family room for days on end) and I’m good with that.

What’s always been the bane of my laundry existence? Mis-matched socks. I cannot tell you how many socks they’ve lost over the years. At one time, when all three girls were still at home, I ended up with 47 individual socks with no matches. How in the hell can they lose that many socks? I’ve heard the jokes about the dryer eating socks, but that was beyond ridiculous. And the worst part was…my daughters didn’t seem to care.

So in a fit of maternal pique, which I’m sure you ALL can relate to, I laid down the law. No more new socks until they started keeping track of the socks they already had. Well, my daughters, ever creative, started wearing mis-matched socks. The first time I looked down at my 12 year old daughter’s feet and she had on SOCKS THAT DIDN’T MATCH, I gasped in horror. I can’t wear socks that don’t match. It’s not about what other people might think if they saw me wearing one purple sock and one white sock, but a visual thing for me. I walk around in socks all day and it’d be damn distracting every time I looked at my feet. But…I let it go. I figured if they were all right with it, then the 47 mis-matched socks would actually almost become 24 new pairs of wearable socks.

I stumbled across this display in a store a few months ago. I was so shocked and surprised I took a pic with my cell phone and sent it to the daughter who’s never followed the rules very well and was the first one to get creative.

A company, Little Miss Matched, actually sells socks that don’t match. This is not a joke. And they sell the socks in packs of three, in funky combinations:

My daughters were trendsetters — who knew?

Just for fun, let me hear your missing sock stories, or whether you can wear mis-matched socks and one lucky commenter will win a pair of socks, mis-matched or not — and I promise they’re not from my personal stash.

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I met Jeanne Adams at a Kiss of Death romantic suspense writers retreat, but the fact is I feel like I’ve known her all my RWA life.  At that retreat, we connected immediately and it wasn’t long before we traipsed off to an ABC Liquor for, um, some Diet Coke, yeah, that’s what we wanted.  Shortly after, there were tarot card readings and a lots of laughs.  In the past few years, Jeanne’s blown into the romantic suspense world with two highly acclaimed novels from Kensington and another — that I just read and loved! — due out this September.

Jeanne’s here today to Blow Stuff Up ~ so let’s give her a real MSW welcome and some explosive comments!

Hello Murder She Writes writers and readers! Thank you, Roxanne, for letting me be a guest with you today! I enjoy your blog so much, it was a delight to be able to post here. I’m sure you’ll see some of my usual blog crew, The Romance Bandits, popping in to say hello too. (Be afraid…be very afraid as they tend to invade….) Grins. When Roxanne and I were talking topics, I decided I’d focus on your blog’s title, Murder She Writes. It seemed a good fit for me since I like to bump characters off with great regularity in my own books. If there’s a high body count wrapped around a good story, I’m your girl; I like to write them, I like to read them. I’ll skip movies where there’s just blood – Saw, anyone? – but if there’s a story, and a romance? I’m there. I also like books and movies where things blow up.

In fact, that’s my usual criteria for a date night movie – does something blow up? Is there a decent chase scene – physical or psychological? If not, I’m not that enthusiastic. My husband loves them too, thank goodness, or date night could be a real drag. Since date night’s expensive (babysitters are extortionists in teenage clothing!) we don’t do it that often, but it’s great to be compatible on this issue. I’m not that keen on seeing movies that make me weep copiously and leave me feeling like I just watched two solid hours of the worst of the evening news. Urg. Thankfully, my husband hates movies like A Night In Rodanthe (date night with another couple…sigh) as much as I did and gleefully chose Sherlock Holmes for the latest date night. I want movies like Con Air, The Rock, The Bourne movies, Fast and Furious; I want Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Iron Man, Avatar, and Wolverine. If it’s a “chick-flick” it can’t be a tear-jerker-and-no-happy-ending deal. The Holiday, Sabrina, Batman Returns…wait, that’s another one where things blow up. Grins. Still, you get my drift.

When it comes to books, I love the same thing. All the wonderful Murder She Writes authors are on my keeper shelf. While I know SJ, *waving madly* and Roxanne personally, you all keep me in stories of boom, thrill and wow! So, thank you! I like to do that in my own books as well, and I can only hope I’ll succeed as well as you Murder She Write-ers. My fellow blog-mates call me one of the “Boom-Girls” because I’m notorious for my tendency to kill-em-off or blow-it-up. Plot problem? All will be solved by a convenient bomb. Inconvenient character? A handy murder will fix that right up. My first book, Dark and Dangerous, starts with the heroine blowing up half her house (and a number of bad guys) when her ex-husband comes after her. The second, Dark and Deadly, starts with a pipe bomb. My third book which comes out in September, Deadly Little Secrets, starts with five murders. Grins.

As I said, when in doubt…kill someone off or blow something up… Ha! This topic of murder and blowing things up is near and dear to my heart and writing as you can tell. I even teach a class on body disposal, which gives you an idea of how much I’m interested in the topic. My darling husband loves to tell people that going on date night rocks, because we like the same kind of movies and I never drag him to a “weeper,” but he sometimes wonders if he should sleep with one eye open given how often I employ that body disposal thing in my books. Or how sharp I keep my kitchen knives. Bwah-ha-ha!

Obviously, if you’re a fan of this blog, you’re into this whole concept of Boom and Blast. What’s been your favorite BOOM movie this last year? Do you enjoy movies that start with a bang and never let up, or ones, like Bourne and Bond, that have more of a psychological element? Who’s your favorite blow-em-up, kill-em-off, psychological thriller authors? Do you go for Ludlum and Crichton as well as your favorite Romantic Suspense Authors? Or do you insist on some happily-ever-after with your boom? I can’t wait to read these lists…and thanks again for letting me come play!

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I recently finished reading a romance that I enjoyed. The characters were likable, exercised common sense, and were respectful of each other all the way through. They were reunited lovers–one of my favorite storylines–and there were some fundamental personality changes that needed to take place in order to reach a resolution. I finished the story with a smile. However, it didn’t make my “keeper shelf” where the books I’m certain to re-read go. In a while, I’ll probably forget I read the story.

Why? That’s the question I asked myself when I closed the book. What was missing that made the story forgettable?

Looking back, I realized it was lack of conflict for the heroine. The couple broke up because of issues the hero had and those issues had to be resolved to achieve their happily ever after. But the heroine hadn’t had, nor been part of, the problem and while the hero had to make some big internal changes, she didn’t. She was the same woman he fell in love with and she didn’t have to alter in any way to make them work as a couple.

There was conflict elsewhere in the story–external and the hero’s internal–but it missed the ahhh sensation due to the heroine not having a personal conflict of her own to deal with.

As I was contemplating this further, I was reminded of the scene in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening where Betty Buckley (playing a nutjob, which was creepier for me because of her past roles as the mom on Eight is Enough and the sweet gym teacher in Carrie) asks Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel, “Who’s chasing whom?” explaining that in every romantic relationship one person is always chasing the other.

In the books I love most, not only are the protagonists chasing each other, they’re chasing their personal dreams, and they’re conflicted about how to make them happen and still get their (wo)man. My favorite books are those where the internal conflicts of each character morph and grow as the story progresses, where the changes they need to make take place before the end of the book and initiate the need for even more changes. This doesn’t mean the book has to be angsty and/or dark. Even romantic comedies can have characters dealing with layered, personal internal conflicts in addition to their romantic and external ones.

Stories can still be enjoyable with only one of the main protagonists dealing with a major (or multiple major conflicts). The non-conflicted character can still be admirable and real. They can have faults and foibles, goals and full lives. But without some friction, there’s not as much for me to root for and become invested in as a reader. I really, really dislike conflict in my daily life, but I really, really crave it in my reading material.

So how about you? Are you a conflict junky, too? What are some of your favorite conflicted heroes/heroines? Were their partners equally driven to change and grow? And just for fun, because it’s Monday and we all have a new week in which to rock our respective worlds, I’ll give away a tote bag and winner’s choice of my backlist (anthologies are iffy, but if I have it, I’ll send it.) to one of the commentors. Winner will be announced this weekend.

Happy Monday!

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Congratulations to this week’s winners, especially Aly whose name was drawn twice! Please email us with your postal address so we can send your prizes.

• Congratulations to Aly, who won an autographed copy of Laura Griffin’s UNTRACEABLE. Please e-mail laura@lauragriffin.comwith your mailing address so she can send you your prize.
• The winner of the $15.00 Barnes and Noble gift card is: MARISKA. Congratulations, Mariska! Please email Jenapodaca@aol.com with your mailing address. The correct answer to the quiz on Monday’s blog is: Number 4, Jen has not had one of her books optioned for a movie (yet!).
• Congrats go to Aly (comment #6) who is the winner of the $20 Gift certficate to B&N or Amazon (US) or Borders. Please email toni@tonimcgeecausey.comwith your preference of certificates and which email address you prefer it emailed to. Thanks for stopping by to comment!
• Liza is the winner of the $15 Starbucks gift card. Enjoy, and email Sophie at sophie@sophielittlefield.com to let her know where to send it.

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I should start by mentioning that I’m not much of an athlete. Never did the swim team thing, or soccer, or basketball. Now, I am an avid runner, but let’s be honest. How much athletic talent does it really take to jog down the street successfully? When I think about my complete lack of athletic ability combined with my severe aversion to cold (I grew up in Houston, capital of the Mosquito Belt), it’s pretty ironic that one of my very favorite television events is the Winter Olympics.

I’m a Winter Olympics junkie. Love to pop the popcorn, throw on the fur-lined moccasins, and curl up on the sofa to watch all those fabulous winter wonderland sports.

Maybe it’s the romantic in me, but my favorite is usually pairs skating. The costumes, the music, the poingnant love stories behind some of the couples. And of course, there’s also the built-in melodrama. (Who doesn’t remember Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding?) With all the rivalries, romance, and conflict, Olympic skating is almost like a good romance novel.

I sat down this year prepared to be swept away by the triple toe loopers, but I quickly realized that this year, women’s downhill skiing is totally where it’s at. Have you been watching?? Do you know what I’m talking about??

First off, how about those stunts? Did anyone see the Swedish skier who rocketed about sixty feet in the air before crashing on the downhill course? This year has been skids, cartwheels, and face-plants all over the place.

Of course, action sequences are fun, but what really makes a great story is the characters, and there is no shortage of interesting ones here. Start with the stunningly beautiful Lindsey Vonn, dubbed by the media as the Olympic Cover Girl after appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated. (Some people protested that the magazine ‘sexualized’ her by showing her crouched down on skis and heading down a mountain with her bum in the air, but she’s a skier and that’s what they do, so I don’t really get all the fuss.) At any rate, she captivated audiences all over the world the other night when she beat out childhood rival and fellow American Julia Mancuso as well as her best friend, Maria Riesch of Germany, for a gold medal.

And on the subject of Julia Mancuso, what’s with the tiara? Not that I mind, really. I mean, every good fairy tale needs a tiara. It’s just that it looked a bit weird up there twinkling atop her head while she was standing around after the race. It wasn’t until I Googled her that I discovered why Mancuso (as opposed to Vonn) might be the real face of the New Olympics. Turns out, she has a line of lingerie called “Kiss My Tiara.” (Men across America are discovering a new enthusiasm for women’s skiing.)

Athletic and business savvy, this woman. Her products include thongs and boy shorts. Only problem is, you have to have an Olympic athlete’s body to wear them. Yes, I checked them out. Sizes range from Small to Medium (the thong) and One Size Fits Most (the boy short). Hmm…. Clearly this girl is landlocked and hasn’t been to a public beach in a while. But as she’s tied with Bode Miller for most career Olympic Alpine medals by a U.S. skier, I’m going to let it slide.

What Olympic moments have you loved or hated lately? Please share. And since I always enjoy a good contest, I’m going to give a prize to one lucky commenter. (Don’t worry, it’s not a thong.) I was thinking more along the lines of a signed copy of my latest romantic suspense novel, UNTRACEABLE. Good luck and happy Olympic viewing!