By The Way...

Wednesday, May 24, 2006
3:59:00 PM EDT
Hearing Here in the Night -- Kelly Polar
Julia Spencer-Fleming had the sort of first-time author experience most writers could only dream about -- when her mystery novel In The Bleak Midwinter arrived in stores in 2002, introducing readers to crime-solving Episcopalian priest Clare Fergusson and small town police chief Russ Van Alstyne, not only did it get great reviews, it also won an astounding number of mystery genre awards -- more than any other debut novel before or since. Clare and Russ (and Spencer-Fleming) kept the ball rolling with their further adventures:  2003's A Fountain Filled With Blood received a Barry award nomination, while 2004's Out of the Deep I Cry was nominated for Edgar and Anthony awards.

Now To Darkness and to Death, the fourth book in the series, is about to hit paperback stands, and it's following the predecessors' tradition of great notices, including a coveted starred review in Publishers Weekly. Here's Julia Spencer-Fleming to talk about it all.

1. Quick! Tell us a little bit about yourself and about To Darkness and To Death.
 
Well, to start with, I wasn't one of those people who knew she was destined to be a writer from the moment she got a crayon in her chubby little hand. What I was was a crazy mad reader. I was the kid who took two hours to walk home from school because I never lifted my eyes from The Bobbsey Twins and the La-Z Bar Burglary. In fifth grade, when we had a “hobbies fair,” I brought in boxes and boxes of books and a sign reading, “I am a Bookworm!” Every year I won the library’s summer reading contest. I had the sort of social life you might expect, under those circumstances.
 
As a teen, I wrote bad poetry and bad short stories, but it never occurred to me thatI could be a writer. I didn't know any writers. I figured that having stories running through my head constantly was a sign of some barely-held-at-bay mental illness (as indeed it may be, although a very handy one to have) and went on to get degrees in theatre, museum studies, and law.
 
It wasn't until I was a stay-at-home mother of two that I got into writing again. I joined an online science fiction writer’s group -- yes, I said science fiction -- and discovered that thirty years of non-stop reading had turned me into a good writer. The only trouble was, I had no world building skills. None. Instead, these dead bodies kept popping up. I decided it was a sign. I dropped the SF and started In the Bleak Midwinter, my first book.
 
That became the first in my series about Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne. To Darkness and To Death is the fourth, although I like to think each book in the series can stand by itself. I try to stretch myself to do something different in each novel I write, and in Darkness, the challenge I set was to write an entire mystery that (if I can sound poncy and egg-headed for a moment) was a riff on the Aristotelian principles of drama a single setting (the small Adirondack town of Millers Kill and the mountains around it),  characters brought low by their own innate flaws (a logger, a mill owner, and an environmentalist’s economic maneuvering become a literal struggle to survive), all taking place within a single day. Needless to say, it’s the most thriller-like of my books. That Aristotle he knew what was going on.
 
2. The tagline of your Web site reads: "Novels of Faith and Murder for Readers of Literary Suspense." Faith and Murder are an odd combination; explain what both meant to you -- and why you bring them together.
 
See, I don't think of Faith and Murder as being such an odd combination. On the superficial level, all you have to do is follow the news to see how issues of faith get people hopped up enough for murder. In my books, the faith refers to Clare Fergusson, a newly-ordained priest, who is trying hard to live her faith despite her adrenaline addiction, her impatience with the church hierarchy and her growing involvement with the married chief of police. Russ Van Alstyne also wrestles with faith, although as an agnostic, he'd refer to it as commitment. He’s trying to be faithful to his role as a leader. To his vows as a husband. Basically, he walks around with a boulder of obligations on his shoulders every day, trying to live up to that.
 
3. He's a Chief of Police. She's an Episcopal priest. They fight crime! Talk a little bit about the art and science of balancing the lives and stories of two such disparate lead characters across a series of novels.
 
When I started the series, Clare came first. I wasn't interested in writing a character whose primary motivation was grabbing the bad guy and slinging his butt in jail. I wanted someone who was looking to accomplish other things: to serve justice, and mercy, and to make broken things whole. A priest. Which also helped with the “Nancy Drew question”: why is this person poking around in murder to begin with? Okay, we expect priests and ministers and rabbis to be involved with the community, to know things about individuals that others might not, to be there during times of crisis. So her profession gave Clare an opening. But I didn't want to have a bumbling or nonexistent police department, so that the amateur solved each and every crime single-handed. She needed a cop on her side. Thus, Russ Van Alstyne was born.
 
They balance each other, the way a good couple should. She’s religious, obviously, and he’s agnostic. She’s idealistic, he’s hard-bitten. She’s younger, he’s older. She’s an outsider in the first book, she’s experiencing her first snowy winter ever. He’s a hometown boy who returned after a quarter century away. But they also have commonalities that bring them together and drive the story forward: they’re both army vets, both principled, both have a sense of humor and a passionate curiosity.
 
I work carefully to balance them in terms of “time on stage.” I sketch out chapters and decide who will be the viewpoint character. Who turns up which clue when. I get asked how I write such a convincing guy (I use a close third person point of view, so when you read a scene with Russ, you’re in his head.) The truth is, I didn't know it was supposed to be difficult. An advantage of never getting a degree in creative writing, I suppose.
 
4. Share a useful piece of writing advice you were given.
 
I still think some of the best practical advice comes from Robert Heinlein: Sit in the chair every day. Finish thework. Send it out. The one book on writing I think everyone shouldread is Lawrence Block’s Telling Lies for Fun and Profit.
 
I can tell you one of the silliest pieces of writing advice I got that I followed. I read somewhere that in order to convey a character’s thoughts, the author should show him touching some part of his head. And you know, at the time, it made sense to me! So if you read my first book, you'll notice a lot of clutching of hair, stroking of chins, etc. Eventually I realized I could convey thoughts any way I wanted to, so long as I made it clear they were thoughts. So now I italicize shamelessly.
 
5. Your first novel In The Bleak Midwinter won multiple awards, which is a nice way of breaking into the book business. What is the effect of having that sort of early success? Are there negatives to go with the positives?
 
The only negative was my feeling scared to death that the second book, A Fountain Filled With Blood, was going to bellyflop. Here I was, straight out of the gate -- and I do mean straight out; In the Bleak Midwinter was the first novel I had ever finished -- getting praised in the New York Times and racking up nominations for almost every mystery writing award there is. And I had no idea how I had done it. I was terrified that it had been a weird fluke, and that my next book would tank, and that I'd have to go back to practicing personal injury law, a fate worse than death.
 
No, there is a second negative, and that’s that there’s no good way to say, “I won the most awards for a debut mystery every!” without sounding like a jerk. I try to not bring it up unless someone else does. Thanks, John!
 
6. This is a sort of frivolous question, but what the hey: Doesn't the presence of mystery story protagonists (or in this case two of them) radically increase the amount of crime in any small town? If one were a person living in one of these small towns, and suddenly the crime rate went through the roof, shouldn't one try to find the person acting in a mystery story protagonist sort of way, and then buy them a one-way ticket out of town?
 
In the mystery world, we have a name for this: the Cabot Cove Syndrome. Named after beloved TV icon Jessica Fletcher’s Cabot Cove, the small town in Maine with a murder rate higher than that of D.C. (Interestingly enough, no one ever points out the statistical unlikeliness of the average PI being hired to investigate a murder every six months, orof a glamorous forensic pathologist crossing paths with serial killer after serial killer.)
 
I deal with it in a couple of ways. First, people do comment on how Clare keeps getting involved in crimes. Her vestry is on her to keep a low profile, and Russ makes pointed remarks about how she’s once more shoving her way into an investigation. More importantly, I try to vary the murders, if you will, so that in one book the victims (sadly, there are usually more than one) are out-of-towners, in one the murder took place long ago, and so forth.
 
Ultimately, it boils down to writing characters that live for the readers, and putting them in a place that seems real, from the creak of a farmhouse floorboard to the frost on the edges of the leaves. If you do that, the reader trusts you, and will willingly suspend disbelief to live for a few hours in your world.
 
Hey, isn't that Aristotelian, too?

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Next Week: Well, I'm traveling between now and then, so next week we'll take the week off. But! Now is a fine time to add your comments on how this feature is going, as well as your suggestions to make it better. Let me know!




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This entry has 5 comments: (Add your own)

• #5 Comment from lurkynat 
  5/26/06 2:03 AM | Permalink

  cool John! Yeay!(applause)
  getting that Edgar award is stellar...(hi Monponsett)
  natalie
  
• #4 Comment from lordbrutish 
  5/25/06 4:10 PM | Permalink

  John: I don't agree with easeuss. Thought the length was fine; I could even have lived with it being longer.
  
  This definitely made me want to go pick up one of Julia's books, even though I don't read that many mysteries, so I guess the evil master plan is working!
• #3 Comment from easuess 
  5/25/06 9:58 AM | Permalink

  Here's what I think: It's kind of cool. But as far as blogs go, I'm not likely to start reading an entry this long. It's a time thing. There are so many blogs I want to get to that the lengthier posts many times get the snub. It's only my opinion, but it might be relevant to a lot of readers with a lot of favorite blogs. Maybe use some blog psychology and break into two parts or something?
  
  http://saveasecretaryfrominsanity.blogspot.com
• #2 Comment from monponsett 
  5/24/06 7:40 PM | Permalink

  Does anyone else see a fine Thursday night mid-80s husband and wife cop show? I can almost see the reruns on Lifetime as I write this. It sounds sort of like a kick-ass Touched By An Angel.
  
  I do enjoy the feature, and this is said knowing that I'm not likely to read either author you mentioned so far. It's just always cool to get inside a writer's head. the best two words of advice I can give you are Mark and Leyner.
• #1 Comment from mavarin 
  5/24/06 5:49 PM | Permalink

  I think I'm going to have to buy the first book in the series, and see how it goes from there.  Thanks!
  
  Karen