Sister to Sister

 

                                          

I recently joined a fabulous organization, Sisters in Crime, that supports the professional development and recognition of women crime writers. I've known of the group since my bookstore days—it was founded in 1986—but never felt worthy of joining, even though you don't have to be a published author. A truly supportive community of siblings (yes, men can belong too) you can join as an aspiring author, editor, bookselling professional, librarian, or fan of mysteries. So, what took me so long? Not sure I have an answer to that, except to say that this year has ignited an "if not now, when?" passion I've not felt before. I joined as an aspiring author, a designation I hope to change soon.

One of the many benefits of being an active sibling is access to the webinars hosted each month. Yesterday's event, "SinC into Great Writing: Creating Authentic Characters," featured K. Tempest Bradford, who spoke about representing characters whose gender, sexual orientation, racial heritage, or other aspect of identity may be very different from your own. Lou Berney and Walter Mosley discussed character, making the very valid point that character must come first, even if you have the idea for the plot first. Without a believable, realistic protagonist, your readers won't care how great you think the plot is. How do you begin to reveal character? Think about what your protagonist is doing when the readers first meet her. It should be a situation that makes them wonder what's going to happen next.

Their conversation was full of insights into their process. Berney starts each book with an outline and loves to set his characters up so they reveal to him what they're going to do. Mosley reads his dialog aloud to fine tune the voices for his characters, and said, "A single word can unlock a character." He also reads his prose aloud, because it needs to be "beautiful," and suggests that fiction writers read poetry. One of the most encouraging parts of the conversation was about how many drafts they write and how they both feel like the last draft is never done. Yep, the pros struggle too, at times.

When asked about how much time they put into research, Mosley cautioned going overboard and said, "I'm a fiction writer so I can make stuff up." Berney agreed with a smile and said when he's asked about writing techniques or how to solve a particular problem, "Whatever works" is almost always the answer. It's an interesting dichotomy, because writing is work, and it does equal butt in chair, but what Berney said is also true, "Writing should be fun. No one is forcing us to do this."