Playing By the Rules

I remember when I took my first creative writing course at San Jose State sooooo many years ago, the professor, Robert Burdette Sweet, said to us, “If your character is going to kill himself on the last page, the gun better be hanging over the mantelpiece on the first page.” Good advice for any kind of writing. It’s really important, and only fair, for the writer to leave a trail of breadcrumbs for the reader to follow. This is especially important in whodunits. I’ve got a whodunit knocking around in my head I expect to start working on soon, so this blog is a way of reminding myself to follow that important rule.

In my last post, I raved about John Hart’s spectacular novel The Last Child. As I read that wonderful book, I spent a lot of time muttering to myself and even shouting “Holy Cow” and other such phrases at the ends of chapters, but not once did I find myself saying, “Whoa! Where did that come from?” There were a few chuckles followed by “I should’ve seen that coming.” It was all there. Not that there weren’t red herrings enough to keep readers guessing, but the bread crumbs were there. And when you finished the book, it was with the same satisfaction one has finishing a big, tough jigsaw puzzle. All the pieces are there. You just have to put it all together.

Now, I have read some books that didn’t follow the rules. A couple of years ago I picked up a James Patterson book. It’s the only one I’ve ever read with his name on it. I’m reluctant to say “by him” because I’ve read Patterson comes up with story ideas and outlines them, then farms the project out to a whole stable of writers who do the heavy lifting. But if he has his name on the books, you’d think he’d read them and make sure everything that should be there is there. This book was called Beach Road and when I finished it, I remember saying, “You have got to be kidding me. Where the heck did that come from?” The only good thing about the book was that I bought it at a garage sale and only paid a quarter for it. After reading that one, I’ve never been able to use any of my hard-to-come-by reading time for another Patterson book. So I have to admit, maybe Beach Road was an anomaly, but I’ll never know for sure.

I remember feeling the much the same way about Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane. It wasn’t as bad as Patterson’s book by a long shot, but when I finished I still felt Lehane had cheated. Maybe it was particularly disappointing because two of my favorite books are Mystic River and The Given Day. Both are spectacular books, brilliantly written. Time permitting, I would read them both again. Unfortunately, time isn’t permitting these days. Mystic River is perhaps the best whodunit I've ever read, although thanks to John Hart, there is another contender for first place. Maybe it's a tie.  If you haven’t read these two by Lehane yet, find some time and give yourselves a treat, but don’t bother with Shutter Island. I’ve read a few of his other books and liked them pretty well. His detective novels are quite smart. So I will say here, anything by Dennis Lehane, with the exception of Shutter Island, is probably worth your while.

One of my critique partners, Robert Gordon, has decided to add an element of mystery to the book he’s working on at present. He has introduced a spy into his WWII historical novel.  I watch with interest the journey he’s taking with this book, going back to dot his Is and cross his Ts, dropping a few more crumbs, rewriting and rewriting. It’s coming along nicely and I admire his perseverance. I think mysteries must be the most difficult form of writing. There are so many balls to keep in the air, so many clues to be planted, so many facts to be checked. I’m looking forward to the idea of writing a mystery, but realize it will probably be the toughest task I could set for myself. I’m still in the thinking-about-it stage and have a way to go before I start writing. I sure don’t want people slapping their foreheads at the end of my whodunit and muttering, “Whoa. Now where the heck did that come from?”

It Doesn't Get Much Better Than This: a Review of John Hart's The Last Child

I’m doing more reading than writing now, but after the marathon of finishing my second novel, I don’t feel too guilty. Besides, it’s part of the training. I was at a workshop put on by Michael Larsen and Elizabeth Pomada of the Larsen/Pomada Literary Agency last week, and they gave us Ernest Gaines Six Golden Rules for Writing: Read, Read, Read, Write, Write, Write. Now Ernest Gaines is a writer for whom I have great respect. He’s written some wonderful novels – The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and A Lesson Before Dying – to name just two. This is a man who knows something about writing, so if he says I should read, read I will.

Donald Maass of Donald Maass Literary Agency and author of the seminal book on contemporary writing, Writing the Breakout Novel, talks about a novel needing to have tension on each and every page. That is a tall order. In my novels, I feel like I get good tension on most pages, but all? Not quite. When I first read that, I thought about books I’d read and could honestly only think of a precious few books I would describe in that way – The Day of the Jackal, Jaws, and one of my all time favorites, Kindred by Octavia Butler. Oh, there are probably others, but that’s what came to my mind.

This week I read a book that certainly fills Maass’s “tension on every page” maxim. I don’t remember where I heard about this book – read a review or heard something on the radio about it, I think. I scribbled it on a scrap of paper with a note to pick it up. That note rattled around my purse and car for a while, then last week I picked up The Last Child by John Hart. Holy Smoke, what a book! Unfortunately for me, I didn’t have a good chunk of time this week to just sit down and read it. I had three sub teaching jobs this week, a couple of appointments, a day of a thousand errands, etc. You know how it is. Anyway, I grabbed a little time here and there, but once I started the book, I put off what I could and read. I found myself praying for long stop lights on the way to and from school so I could read a page or at least finish a paragraph. I carried the book into stores in hopes I would have to stand on line. I stayed up too late reading. I got up early and read a few pages over breakfast. Every time I thought I’d have an hour or two, something came up.

Today was to be my day. The phone rang at 6:15 a.m. “Do you want to sub today.” “Oh, gosh, sorry. Can’t. The dentist.”  Okay. Not the dentist. Just an absolutely delicious book. I saw clear reading time. Just some obligations in the morning, but by ten, the time would be mine, all mine. At 11:30, Dave said, “How about I take you out to lunch?” Not even one of my favorite mini-dates – lunch out with my hubby – was going to get me away from that book until I finished. I hope Dave had a nice time.

This is a book that is more convoluted and well-written than almost anything I’ve ever read. It has mysteries inside of conundrums wrapped in enigmas. And the writing is simply wonderful. Hart takes you to North Carolina and you don’t want to be any place else until the last word. You feel the suffocating heat and the mosquitoes nibbling you. The smell of death fills your mouth and gags you. You hear the voice of God speaking to Freemantle. It’s all there. His characters are perfect – damaged, vulnerable, sympathetic people pursued by black-hearted, malevolent evil-doers of the first order. Holy Guacamole! How does he come up with this stuff? John Grisham pales in comparison, and trust me, I love John Grisham.

So, if you don’t have a bad ticker, and you do have an open day or so on your schedule, pick up a copy of The Last Child by John Hart and enjoy. It does not disappoint.